' 


«* 


SILHOUETTES   OF 
MY  CONTEMPORARIES 


BOOKS  BY  LYMAN  ABBOTT 

AMERICA  IN  THE  MAKING 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

LETTERS  TO  UNKNOWN  FRIENDS 

LIFE  AND  LITERATURE  OP  THE 
ANCIENT  HEBREWS 

LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF  PAUL 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

REMINISCENCES 

SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEM 
PORARIES 

THE  GREAT  COMPANION 

THE  OTHER  ROOM 


SILHOUETTES  OF 
MY  CONTEMPORARIES 


BY 
LYMAN  ABBOTT 


Who  through  faith  subdued  kingdoms, 
wrought  righteousness,  quenched  the 
violence  of  fire,  waxed  valiant  in  fight, 
turned  to  flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens 


GARDEN   CITY,    N.    Y.,    AND   TORONTO 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE    &    COMPANY 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,  1921,  BY 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING   THAT  OF  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT,  IQ2I,  BY  THE  OUTLOOK  COMPANY 
PRINTED  AT  GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y..  C.  S.  A. 

First  Edition 


PREFACE 

MRS.  SANCHEZ,  in  her  Life  of  Mrs.  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  describes  her  mother  in 
Samoa,  "making  silhouettes  of  the  different 
members  of  the  strangely  assorted  company 
gathered  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe. 
First  she  did  the  portrait  of  Ori  by  throwing  the 
shadow  of  his  head  on  the  wall  with  the  help 
of  a  lamp,  then  drawing  the  outline  and  filling 
it  in  with  India  ink.  It  turned  out  so  good  that 
Ori  demanded  likenesses  of  all  the  rest,  and  soon 
the  house  was  turned  into  a  veritable  picture 
gallery."  In  this  book  I  have  attempted,  by 
the  help  of  a  dim  and  flickering  memory,  to 
trace  in  outline  the  portraits  of  some  of  my 
contemporaries.  The  volume  is  a  gallery  of 
shadow  pictures.  When  in  1876  I  became  as 
sociated  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in  the  editor 
ship  of  the  Christian  Union,  I  introduced  into  the 
paper  a  new  department  entitled  "The  Outlook." 
Its  purpose  was  not  merely  to  report  current 
events,  but  to  interpret  them.  Looking  forward, 
I  endeavoured  to  forecast  their  relation  to  the 
future  and  the  probable  effect  of  their  lives  upon 
it.  The  department  was  definitely  intended  to 


PREFACE 

be,  as  far  as  practicable,  prophetic  both  of  peril 
and  of  promise. 

This,  of  course,  involved  a  study  of  the  men 
who  were  making  history. 

This  volume  contains  some  of  the  results  of 
that  study;  they  are  shadow  pictures  of  fellow- 
men  whom  I  have  known  and  whose  careers  I 
have  studied,  as  looking  back,  they  now  appear 
to  me.  Leaders  of  their  generations  have  usually 
some  one  characteristic  which  distinguishes  them 
from  their  contemporaries.  This  distinctive  char 
acteristic  I  have  sought  to  portray.  To  that  ex 
tent  these  portraits  are  partial  and  imperfect,  as 
all  portraits,  whether  painted  by  the  brush  or 
the  pen,  are  and  must  be.  They  are  all  por 
traits  of  men  who  I  believe  have  contributed 
something  toward  the  progress  which  is  making 
out  of  this  world  a  better  world — one  of  justice, 
liberty,  and  peace. 

Mr.  Trollope,  in  his  biography  of  Thackeray, 
attributes  to  him  and  phrases  for  him  his  de 
fence  against  certain  of  his  critics:  "You  will 
not  sympathize  with  this  young  man  of  mine, 
this  Pendennis,  because  he  is  neither  angel  nor 
imp.  If  it  be  so,  let  it  be  so.  I  will  not  paint 
for  you  angels  or  imps,  because  I  do  not  see 
them.  The  young  man  of  the  day,  whom  I  do 
see,  and  of  whom  I  know  the  inside  and  the 
out  thoroughly,  him  have  I  painted  for  you; 

vi 


PREFACE 

there  he  is,  and  whether  you  like  the  picture  or 
not." 

Perhaps  I  have  been  exceptionally  fortunate, 
but  I  have  sketched  honestly  and  as  well  as  I 
know  how,  the  portraits  of  men  as  I  have  known 
them.  All  politicians  are  not  like  Presidents 
Hayes  and  Roosevelt,  nor  all  reformers  like 
Gough  and  Booker  Washington,  nor  all  preachers 
like  Brooks  and  Beecher.  But  America  is  rich 
in  such  men  as  these.  If  he  is  greatest  who 
serves  his  fellowmen  the  best,  then  I  do  not  be 
lieve  that  any  other  country  has  produced  in  a 
century  and  a  half  as  many  great  men  as  America 
has  produced.  Depressed  and  discouraged  as 
we  are  apt  to  be  by  the  flood  of  filth  and  false 
hood,  of  corruption  and  crime,  which  the  daily 
paper  offers  us  for  our  daily  food,  it  is  well 
sometimes  to  stop,  take  a  quieter  and  less  partial 
view,  and  realize  the  right  we  have  as  Americans 
for  pride  in  our  past  and  for  hope  in  our  future. 

LYMAN  ABBOTT. 


Vll 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

P.  T.  BARNUM,  SHOWMAN 1 

EDWIN  BOOTH,  INTERPRETER 16 

THE  SMILEY  BROTHERS,  LOVERS  OF  HOSPITALITY  28 

JOHN  B.  GOUGH,  APOSTLE  OF  TEMPERANCE  .      .  45 

ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER,  TEACHER.      ...  59 

JOHN  FISKE,  EVOLUTIONIST 81 

EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE,  AN  AMERICAN  ABOU 

BEN  ADHEM 100 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER,  MYSTIC 126 

GENERAL     SAMUEL     CHAPMAN     ARMSTRONG, 

EDUCATIONAL  PIONEER 136 

GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH,  HOME  MISSIONARY 

PIONEER 155 

DANIEL  BLISS,  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY  PIONEER  177 

D WIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY,  EVANGELIST  .      .      .  184 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER,  PROPHET  OF  THE  LOVE 

OF  GOD 213 

PHILLIPS  BROOKS,  PROPHET  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL 

LIFE 240 

ix 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON,  STATESMAN  .     .     .  258 

RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES,  PEACEMAKER  .      .      .  282 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  LABOUR  LEADER    .     .     .  295 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT,  PREACHER  OF  RIGHT 
EOUSNESS      310 

JACOB  ABBOTT,  FRIEND  OF  CHILDREN   .     .     .  332 


SILHOUETTES  OF 
MY  CONTEMPORARIES 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY 
CONTEMPORARIES 

P.  T.  BARNUM,  SHOWMAN 

I  HAVE  a  liking  for  the  faith  of  the  small  boy 
who  said  to  his  mother:  "God  must  have 
laughed  when  he  made  a  monkey."  Why 
not?  If  we  argue  from  the  beauty  in  the  world 
that  the  Creator  has  an  appreciation  of  beauty, 
why  not  from  the  humour  in  humanity  that  the 
Creator  has  a  sense  of  humour?  I  have  read 
the  story  of  a  dancer  who,  being  converted, 
thereafter  expressed  his  devotion  to  the  Virgin 
Mary  by  daily  dancing  before  her  as  the  best 
possible  method  of  bringing  her  honour.  Dickens 
has  rendered  a  good  service  by  his  sympathetic 
picture-stage  life  behind  the  curtain  in  his  por 
trait  of  the  Crummies  family,  and  by  his  sym 
pathetic  picture  of  life  in  the  sawdust  ring  by  his 
portrait  of  Mr.  Sleary.  Let  the  reader  of  this 
article,  then,  understand  the  writer's  point  of 
view.  There  is  a  place  in  God's  world  for  play, 
and  the  professional  entertainer  is  doing  God 
service  if  he  carries  into  his  profession  the  spirit 

1 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

of  honesty,  generosity,  and  purity — that  is,  if 
he  gives  his  audience  their  money's  worth, 
treats  his  employees  and  associates  with  gene 
rosity,  and  rigorously  excludes  from  his  entertain 
ments  anything  that  panders  to  vice  or  tends 
to  degradation. 

In  my  collection  of  autographs,  which  number 
nearly  if  not  quite  a  thousand,  is  the  following 
characteristic  letter  from  P.  T.  Barnum,  written 
to  me  in  answer  to  a  request  for  some  information 
concerning  Tom  Thumb: 

Waldemere, 
Bridgeport,    Ct., 
Oct.  5,  1878. 
REV.  LYMAN  ABBOTT: 

DEAR  SIB — Your  letter  is  reed,  and  I  with  pleasure  en 
close  an  explanation  of  the  T.  T.  matter. 

By  the  way  my  big  show  opens  at  Gilmore's  Garden 
on  the  14th  inst  for  a  month  &  I  hope  you  will  take 
occasion  to  see  a  novel  &  interesting  Exhibition. 

Truly  yours, 

P.  T.  BABNW. 

I  call  this  letter  interesting  not  merely,  not 
mainly,  because  it  exhibits  the  born  advertiser, 
but  because  it  illustrates  what  1  think  was  very 
characteristic  of  Mr.  Barnum,  his  professional 
pride.  He  was  a  great  showman,  and  he  was 
proud  of  being  a  great  showman;  a  great  ad 
vertiser,  and  he  had  a  naive  pride  in  his  curi- 


P.  T.  BARNUM 

ously  ingenious  advertising  schemes.  He  made 
it  clear  in  his  autobiography  that  he  considered 
himself  called  to  be  a  showman;  the  business 
came  to  him,  he  did  not  seek  it  out.  Looking 
back  from  the  first  success  as  the  creator  of 
"Barnum's  Museum,"  he  writes: 

The  business  for  which  I  was  destined,  and  I  believe 
made,  had  not  yet  come  to  me ;  or  rather,  I  had  not  found 
that  I  was  to  cater  for  that  insatiate  want  of  human  nature 
— the  love  of  amusement;  that  I  was  to  make  a  sensation 
on  two  continents ;  and  that  fame  and  fortune  awaited  me 
so  soon  as  I  should  appear  before  the  public  in  the  char 
acter  of  a  showman.  These  things  I  had  not  foreseen. 
I  did  not  seek  the  position  or  the  character.  The  busi 
ness  finally  came  in  my  way;  I  fell  into  the  occupation, 
and  far  beyond  any  of  my  predecessors  on  this  continent,  I 
have  succeeded. 

He  did  not  conduct  his  enterprises  to  elevate 
society.  He  was  frankly  an  entertainer,  and  not 
a  reformer.  If  I  am  right  in  defining  a  good- 
natured  man  as  a  man  who  desires  to  make  other 
people  happy,  then  the  word  good-natured  would 
adequately  describe  him.  He  was  desirous  of 
making  money,  and  he  took  at  times  what  might 
be  called  a  gambler's  chance  in  making  it.  But 
he  was  much  more  than  a  mere  money-maker. 
If  from  any  entertainment  that  he  provided 
the  spectators  had  gone  away  disappointed,  he 
would  have  regarded  the  entertainment  as  a 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

failure,  no  matter  what  money  it  brought  him. 
His  ideals  were  not  always  of  the  highest,  but 
he  lived  up  to  them.  He  never  sacrificed  his 
self-respect  in  order  to  get  the  money  of  the 
public  into  his  own  pocket.  He  writes:  "As 
I  always  justly  boasted,  no  one  could  visit  my 
Museum  and  go  away  without  feeling  that  he 
had  received  the  full  worth  of  his  money."  It 
was  his  ambition — and  it  was  gratified — "to 
have  men  and  women  all  over  the  country  say: 
'There  is  not  another  place  in  the  United  States 
where  so  much  can  be  seen  for  twenty-five  cents 
as  in  Barnum's  American  Museum." 

When  I  came  to  New  York  City  in  1849  to 
enter  New  York  University,  Barnum's  American 
Museum  was  one  of  the  best-known  show  places 
in  the  city.  It  was  situated  on  the  corner  of 
Ann  Street  and  Broadway,  in  what  was  then  the 
centre  of  a  city  which  now  has  grown  so  great 
that  it  has  no  centre,  because  it  has  many 
centres.  Opposite  it  on  Broadway  was  the  best- 
known  hotel  in  the  city,  the  Astor  House;  three 
or  four  blocks  to  the  north  was  the  best-known 
restaurant,  Delmonico's;  between  the  two  was 
"The  Park,"  and  in  the  Park  the  City  Hall. 
The  two  most  famous  Episcopal  churches  of  the 
city  were  Trinity  and  St.  Paul's — Trinity  five 
or  six  minutes'  walk  distant,  St.  Paul's  on  the 
corner  opposite  the  Museum.  St.  George's 

4 


P.  T.  BARNUM 

(Episcopal)  and  the  Brick  Church  (Presbyterian) 
had  a  few  years  before  moved  farther  up 
town.  The  Tribune  and  the  Times  newspapers 
were  close  at  hand.  In  the  afternoon  a  band  of 
half  a  dozen  pieces  played  on  a  balcony  overhang 
ing  the  street.  At  night  a  curious  kaleidoscopic 
collection  of  highly  coloured  and  illuminated 
glasses  was  kept  by  some  contrivance  boiling 
and  bubbling  on  the  walls  of  the  Museum. 

Within  the  Museum  was  a  constantly  increas 
ing  collection  of  all  sorts  of  curiosities,  real  and 
spurious,  natural  and  artificial.  This  was  long 
before  the  days  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum 
of  Art  and  the  Natural  History  Museum,  and 
before  the  days  when  those  serious  and  in 
structive  unadvertised  collections  would  have 
drawn  any  such  group  of  spectators  as  they  now 
draw.  It  was  a  more  credulous,  perhaps  a  more 
curious,  age.  Periodically  the  newspapers  took 
up  for  serious  discussion  the  question :  Is  there 
a  sea  serpent?  When,  therefore,  Mr.  Bar- 
num  advertised  a  "Feejee  Mermaid,"  the  people 
thronged  to  see  it.  In  truth,  it  was  a  curiosity, 
though  an  artificial  one.  A  naturalist  whose 
judgment  on  it  he  obtained  replied  that  "he 
could  not  conceive  how  it  could  have  been  manu 
factured,  for  he  never  saw  a  monkey  with  such 
peculiar  teeth,  arms,  hands,  etc.,  and  he  never 
saw  a  fish  with  such  peculiar  fins;  but  he  did  not 

5 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

believe  in  mermaids."  But  it  served  Mr.  Bar- 
num's  purpose:  it  advertised  his  museum.  He 
subsequently  concluded  that  it  was  a  product  of 
Japanese  ingenuity. 

He  purchased  for  $200  a  model  of  Niagara 
Falls  in  which  the  proportions  of  the  falls,  the 
hills,  rocks,  buildings,  etc.,  in  the  vicinity  were 
given  with  mathematical  accuracy,  "while  the 
absurdity  was  in  introducing  'real  water'  to  rep 
resent  the  falls."  When  the  Water  Commis 
sioners  summoned  him  to  pay  an  extra  water  tax, 
he  showed  them  that  the  water  flowed  back  into 
a  reservoir,  from  which  it  was  pumped  up  to 
repeat  its  service.  "A  single  barrel  of  water,  if 
my  pump  was  in  good  order,  would  furnish  my 
falls  for  a  month." 

The  hazard  and  expense  of  new  enterprises 
did  not  daunt  him.  He  learned  of  the  capture 
of  a  white  whale  at  or  near  the  mouth  of  the 
St.  Lawrence;  sent  up  an  expedition;  captured 
two  of  these  whales;  built  a  tank  of  salt  water 
in  the  basement  of  the  Museum;  and  while  they 
lived  they  proved  a  paying  feature. 

These  attractions  served  as  advertisements, 
but  he  did  not  depend  upon  them.  As  an  in 
ventive  advertiser  he  has  had,  I  rather  think,  no 
equal  in  the  history  of  American  advertisers. 
A  tramp  applied  to  him  for  a  job;  would  be  glad 
to  do  anything  for  a  dollar  a  day.  Barnum  gave 

6 


P.  T.  BARNUM 

him  a  breakfast,  then  told  him  to  lay  a  brick  on 
the  corner  of  Broadway  and  Ann  Street,  an 
other  close  by  the  Museum,  a  third  on  the  corner 
of  Broadway  and  Vesey  Street,  and  a  fourth  on 
the  sidewalk  in  front  of  St.  Paul's  Church;  then 
with  a  fifth  brick  in  hand  to  "take  up  a  rapid 
march  from  one  to  the  other,  making  the  circuit, 
exchanging  your  brick  at  every  point  and  say 
nothing  to  any  one."  At  the  end  of  an  hour  the 
sidewalk  was  packed  with  curious  people  watch 
ing  the  inexplicable  proceeding  and  enough  of 
the  number  followed  the  brick-layer  at  the  end 
of  each  cycle  into  the  Museum  to  more  than  pay 
for  his  hire.  The  profit  to  Mr.  Barnum  was  in 
the  talk  created  and  the  consequent  free  advertis 
ing  of  the  Museum. 

He  announced  baby  shows  with  prizes  for  the 
finest  baby,  the  fattest,  the  handsomest.  Emu 
lous  mothers  crowded  the  Museum  and  the  re 
ports  of  the  baby  shows  found  their  way  into 
the  newspapers  far  and  near.  He  set  an  ele 
phant  in  charge  of  a  keeper  in  oriental  costume 
ploughing  on  a  six-acre  lot  close  beside  the  track 
of  the  New  York  and  New  Haven  Railroad.  The 
keeper  was  furnished  with  a  time-table,  and  did 
his  ploughing  when  trains  were  passing.  A 
friendly  farmer  criticized  him  for  his  folly. 
"Your  elephant,"  he  said,  "can't  draw  as  much 
as  two  pair  of  my  oxen  can."  "You  are  mis- 

7 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

taken,  my  friend,"  replied  Mr.  Barnum;  "he 
can  draw  more  than  forty  yoke  of  oxen;  for  he 
can  draw  the  attention  of  twenty  millions  of 
American  citizens  to  Barnum's  Museum!" 

One  important  feature  of  the  Museum  was  its 
"Lecture  Room."  The  theatre  had  a  bad  name, 
and  thousands  of  people  came  every  year  to  New 
York  City  who  would  not  go  to  a  theatre  but 
who  were  delighted  to  go  to  Barnum's  Lecture 
Room  to  be  entertained  by  what  in  these  days 
would  be  called  a  vaudeville  performance.  They 
included  educated  dogs,  industrious  fleas,  auto 
matons,  jugglers,  ventriloquists,  living  statuary, 
tableaux,  gypsies,  albinos,  fat  boys,  giants, 
dwarfs,  rope-dancers,  and  the  like. 

But  from  the  first  the  Lecture  Room  differed 
from  the  average  theatre — certainly  the  cheaper 
ones — in  more  than  a  name.  Barnum  forbade 
what  was  common  at  that  time — the  setting 
apart  a  certain  section  of  the  house,  popularly 
known  as  the  "third  tier,"  where  women  of  the 
town  might  ply  their  trade.  He  would  allow  no 
bar  upon  the  premises,  and,  finding  some  of  his 
patrons  going  out,  as  was  the  custom,  for  a  drink 
between  the  acts,  he  ceased  giving  return  checks 
to  such  as  went  out.  My  shadowy  recollection 
of  that  time  confirms  his  claim  that  he  allowed 
on  the  stage  no  indelicacies  of  costume  and  no 
salacious  dialogues.  When  the  reputation  of 

8 


P.  T.  BARNUM 

the  Lecture  Room  was  established  he  substituted 
for  the  educated  dogs  and  industrious  fleas 
"moral  dramas"  such  as  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin" 
and  "The  Drunkard."  In  his  Philadelphia 
Museum,  where  the  prejudice  against  the 
theatre  was  greater  than  in  New  York,  the  Lec 
ture  Room  was  very  popular.  When  "The 
Drunkard"  was  being  played  there  was  a  tem 
perance  pledge  at  the  box-office  which  thousands 
signed,  and  in  his  autobiography  he  tells  us  that 
"almost  every  hour  during  the  day  and  evening 
women  could  be  seen  bringing  their  husbands  to 
the  Museum  to  sign  the  pledge." 

Mr.  Barnum  had  inherited  from  his  father  and 
his  grandfather  an  irrepressible  fondness  for  prac 
tical  jokes,  and  he  sometimes  played  them  upon 
the  public.  But  he  always  did  it  in  such  a  fash 
ion  that  the  public  enjoyed  the  joke  with  him. 
That  his  humbugging  did  not  impair  the  pub 
lic  faith  in  his  commercial  honesty  is  suffi 
ciently  established  by  two  incidents.  When  he 
wanted  to  buy  Scudder's  American  Museum, 
which  was  financially  a  failure  but  which  he  be 
lieved  he  could  make  a  financial  success,  he  bor 
rowed  the  necessary  $15,000  on  his  personal 
credit,  giving  as  security  the  purchased  col 
lection;  and  when  eight  years  later,  in  order  to 
carry  out  his  contract  with  Jenny  Lind,  he  had 
to  deposit  in  the  hands  of  her  bankers  in  London 

9 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  sum  of  $187,500,  he  borrowed  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  sum  largely  on  the  confidence 
that  American  bankers  had  in  his  commercial 
ability  and  his  financial  honesty. 

I  have  defined  Mr.  Barnum  as  a  good-natured 
man  and  defined  a  good-natured  man  as  one 
who  desires  to  make  other  men  happy.  This 
is  not  the  highest  ambition  of  which  man  is 
capable,  but  it  is  a  not  unworthy  ambition,  and 
in  Mr.  Barnum  it  appeared  not  only  in  his  re 
solve  to  send  away  contented  all  those  who  came 
to  his  entertainments,  but  also  in  his  resolve  to 
make  his  associates  and  his  employees  sharers 
in  his  happiness.  The  cynics  may  say  that  this 
is  good  business.  I  think  it  is.  But  not  every 
one  has  sufficient  faith  in  this  principle  as  good 
business  to  practise  it.  A  slight  illustration  of 
Mr.  Barnum's  faith  in  it  is  furnished  by  his  giv 
ing  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day  to  the  brick-laying 
tramp  who  only  asked  for  a  dollar  a  day;  a  bet 
ter  illustration,  by  his  steadily  increasing  Tom 
Thumb's  share  in  the  profits  of  their  joint  enter 
prise  as  its  increasing  profitableness  became 
manifest.  But  the  most  striking  illustration 
is  that  furnished  by  his  proposal  to  Jenny  Lind 
to  change  the  contract  between  them  after  the 
first  auction  sale  of  tickets  had  taken  place  and 
before  the  first  concert.  This  change  I  copy  from 
Mr.  Barnum's  autobiography. 

10 


P.  T.  BARNUM 

On  the  Tuesday  after  her  arrival  I  informed  Miss  Lind 
that  I  wished  to  make  a  slight  alteration  in  our  agreement. 
"What  is  it?"  she  asked  in  surprise. 

"I  am  convinced,"  I  replied,  "that  our  enterprise  will 
be  much  more  successful  than  either  of  us  anticipated.  I 
wish,  therefore,  to  stipulate  that  you  shall  receive  not 
only  $1,000  for  each  concert  besides  all  the  expenses,  as 
heretofore  agreed  on,  but  after  taking  $5,500  per  night 
for  expenses  and  my  services,  the  balance  shall  be  equally 
divided  between  us." 

Jenny  looked  at  me  with  astonishment.  She  could  not 
comprehend  my  proposition.  After  I  had  repeated  it  and 
she  fully  understood  its  import,  she  cordially  grasped  me  by 
the  hand,  and  exclaimed,  "Mr.  Barnum,  you  are  a  gentle 
man  of  honour;  you  are  generous;  it  is  just  as  Mr.  Bates 
told  me;  I  will  sing  for  you  as  long  as  you  please;  I  will 
sing  for  you  in  America — in  Europe — anywhere." 

Mr.  Barnum  ends  the  narrative  of  his  engage 
ment  with  her  by  a  financial  statement  of  the 
"total  receipts,  excepting  of  concerts  devoted  to 
charity."  They  are  given  in  detail.  We  re 
port  only  the  totals  as  reported  by  Mr.  Barnum: 

Jenny  Lind's  net  avails  of  95  concerts       .      .     $176,675.09 
P.  T.  Barnum's  gross  receipts  after  paying  Miss 

Lind  535,486.25 


Total  receipts  of  95  concerts  .      .      .     $712,161.34 

Mr.  Barnum  does  not  state  what  his  net  prof 
its  were;  but  as  he  paid  all  the  expenses,  includ 
ing  travelling  expenses  and  hotel  bills  for  Jenny 
Lind  and  the  entire  musical  company,  the  amount 

11 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

to  be  deducted  from  the  gross  receipts  must  have 
been  considerable. 

That  Mr.  Barnum  recognized  the  human 
values  as  well  as  the  commercial  possibilities  of 
his  "natural  curiosities"  is  evident  from  his  re 
lations  with  the  famous  dwarf,  "General  Tom 
Thumb,"  Mr.  Barnum's  own  name  for  Charles 
Stratton,  whom  he  discovered  as  a  child  of  five 
and  so  trained  that  when  the  boy  went  some  two 
years  later  to  be  exhibited  in  France,  Mr.  Bar 
num  won  a  judgment  from  the  authorities  that 
the  "General's"  presentation  of  various  char 
acters  in  costume  entitled  him  to  be  counted  an 
actor,  and  therefore  liable  only  for  the  11- 
per-cent.  "theatrical  license",  not  for  the 
25-per-cent.  license  for  "natural  curiosities." 
From  the  European  tour  from  which  they  re 
turned  in  1847,  when  the  "little  General"  was 
ten  years  of  age,  Tom  Thumb's  father  had  ac 
quired  a  fortune  from  which  he  settled  a  large 
sum  upon  his  valuable  son.  Some  ten  years 
later,  when  Mr.  Barnum  "failed"  as  the  result 
of  an  extensive  real -estate  development  enter 
prise,  among  the  letters  of  friendly  offers  that 
came  to  him  was  the  following: 

Jones's   Hotel,   Philadelphia, 

May  12,  1856. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  BARNUM. — I  understand  your  friends, 
and  that  means  "all  creation,"  intend  to  get  up  some  bene- 


P.  T.  BARNUM 

fits  for  your  family.  Now,  my  dear  sir,  just  be  good 
enough  to  remember  that  I  belong  to  that  mighty  crowd, 
and  I  must  have  a  finger  (or  at  least  a  "thumb")  in  that 
pie.  I  am  bound  to  appear  on  all  such  occasions  in  some 
shape,  from  "Jack  the  Giant  Killer,"  upstairs,  to  the  door 
keeper  down,  whichever  may  serve  you  best;  and  there 
are  some  feats  that  I  can  perform  as  well  as  any  other  man 
of  my  inches.  I  have  just  started  out  on  my  western  tour, 
and  have  my  carriage,  ponies,  and  assistants  all  here,  but 
I  am  ready  to  go  on  to  New  York,  bag  and  baggage,  and 
remain  at  Mrs.  Barnum's  service  as  long  as  I,  in  my  small 
way,  can  be  useful.  Put  me  into  any  "heavy"  work,  if 
you  like.  Perhaps  I  cannot  lift  as  much  as  some  other  folks, 
but  just  take  your  pencil  in  hand  and  you  will  see  I  can 
draw  a  tremendous  load.  I  drew  two  hundred  tons  at  a 
single  pull  to-day,  embracing  two  thousand  persons,  whom 
I  hauled  up  safely  and  satisfactorily  to  all  parties,  at  one 
exhibition.  Hoping  that  you  will  be  able  to  fix  up  a  lot  of 
magnets  that  will  attract  all  New  York,  and  volunteering  to 
sit  on  any  part  of  the  loadstone,  I  am,  as  ever,  your  little 

but  sympathizing  friend,  ^        m       m 

GEN.  TOM  THUMB. 

Although  Mr.  Barnum  felt  compelled  to  re 
fuse  this  offer,  he  could  hardly  have  forgotten 
it.  When  he  had  so  far  recovered  himself  that 
he  was  free  to  do  so,  he  again  went  abroad,  tak 
ing  with  him  the  "little  General,"  repeating  the 
former  successes,  and  cancelling  his  indebtedness 
at  the  end  of  four  years. 

In  1862  the  "General "  had  a  country  home  in 
Bridgeport  where  he  spent  his  "intervals  of  rest 
with  his  horses,  and  especially  with  his  yacht, 

13 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

for  his  fondness  for  the  water  was  his  great  pas 
sion."  On  one  of  his  trips  to  New  York,  upon 
which  occasions  he  always  visited  the  Museum 
and  Mr.  Barnum,  he  met  a  recent  acquisition 
of  the  showman — Lavinia  Warren,  a  dwarf,  a 
"most  intelligent  and  refined  young  lady,  well 
educated  and  an  accomplished,  beautiful, and  per 
fectly  developed  woman  in  miniature."  With  the 
hearty  sympathy  of  Mr.  Barnum  the  young  peo 
ple  shortly  became  engaged  and  Miss  Warren  was 
released  from  her  contract  to  go  abroad  for  exhi 
bition.  Moreover,  although  Mr.  Barnum  "did 
not  hesitate  to  seek  continued  advantage  from  the 
notoriety  of  the  prospective  marriage,"  when  his 
offer  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars  if  they  would  post 
pone  the  wedding  for  a  month  was  declined,  he  did 
not  lose  his  human  interest  with  the  momentary 
loss.  "It  was  suggested  to  me,"  he  writes,  "that 
a  small  fortune  in  itself  could  be  easily  made  out 
of  the  excitement.  'Let  the  ceremony  take  place 
in  the  Academy  of  Music,  charge  a  big  price  for 
admission,  and  the  citizens  will  come  in  crowds.' 
I  have  no  manner  of  doubt  that  in  this  way 
twenty -five  thousand  dollars  would  easily  have 
been  obtained.  But  I  had  no  such  thought.  I 
had  promised  to  give  the  couple  a  genteel  and 
graceful  wedding,  and  I  kept  my  word." 

The  ceremony  took  place  in  Grace  Church, 
in  the  presence  of  an  audience   of  ladies  and 

14 


P.  T.  BARNUM 

gentlemen  admitted  only  by  cards  of  invitation, 
even  to  the  exclusion  of  a  highly  irate  pew  owner, 
who  afterward  wrote  the  rector  a  sharp  letter 
of  protest  and  received  from  him  a  sharp  though 
perfectly  courteous  and  dignified  reply.  Numer 
ous  applications  were  made  for  tickets  to  wit 
ness  the  ceremony  and  as  much  as  sixty  dollars 
was  offered  for  a  single  admission;  but  not  a 
ticket  was  sold,  and  to  the  charge  brought  by 
disgruntled  critics  that  the  marriage  was  a  money- 
making  scheme,  Mr.  Barnum  made  the  following 
characteristically  good-natured  reply: 

"It  was  by  no  means  an  unnatural  circum 
stance  that  I  should  be  suspected  of  having  in 
stigated  and  brought  about  that  marriage  of 
Tom  Thumb  with  Lavinia  Warren.  Had  I  done 
this,  I  should  at  this  day  have  felt  no  regrets,  for 
it  has  proved,  in  an  eminent  degree,  one  of  the 
'happy  marriages'." 

If  this  were  a  sketch  of  Mr.  Barnum's  life,  it 
would  be  fatally  defective,  for  I  have  said  noth 
ing  of  his  temperance  activities,  his  patriotic 
services  during  the  Civil  War,  or  his  battle,  when 
a  member  of  the  Connecticut  Legislature,  against 
political  corruption  of  a  formidable  description. 
But  I  have  deliberately  confined  myself  to  a 
sketch  of  his  professional  career  as  Showman, 
in  which  he  did  nothing  to  degrade,  something 
to  elevate,  and  much  to  entertain  his  generation. 

15 


EDWIN  BOOTH,  INTERPRETER 

A  FRIEND  of  mine,  no  longer  living,  con 
servative  in  his  theology,  consistent  in 
his  Calvinism,  once  said  to  me  some 
thing  like  this:  "If  the  actor  is  wholly  evil,  if 
there  is  no  place  in  the  kingdom  of  God  for  the 
actor's  profession,  why  does  God  endow  some 
of  his  children  with  the  dramatic  and  mimetic 
instinct  and  seem  to  call  them  to  the  stage  by  an 
inward  impulse  as  distinct  as  that  by  which  he 
seems  to  call  others  of  his  children  to  the  pul 
pit?" 

The  only  answer  I  can  give  to  that  question 
is  that  the  theatre  is  not  wholly  evil  and  that  there 
is  a  place  in  the  kingdom  of  God  for  the  profession 
of  the  actor.  No  doubt  there  are  in  every  one 
of  the  great  cities  some  theatres  that  we  could 
well  spare  and  some  actors  we  could  see  ban 
ished  from  the  stage  without  regret.  But  if  it 
were  possible  by  edict  to  close  all  theatres  and 
banish  all  actors  from  American  life  the  loss  to  the 
community  would  amount  to  an  irreparable  moral 
disaster. 

The  theatre  has  a  threefold  service  to  render: 
it  has  to  furnish  amusement,  rest,  and  inspiration. 

16 


EDWIN  BOOTH 

We  need  amusement.  It  is  an  old  saying 
that  "All  work  and  no  play  makes  Jack  a  dull 
boy."  The  fathers  and  the  mothers  need  it  as 
well  as  their  children.  "A  merry  heart,"  says 
the  proverb,  "doeth  good  like  a  medicine."  A 
hearty  laugh  is  medicinal.  A  cooperative  laugh, 
a  laugh  all  together,  promotes  good  fellowship. 
Sympathy  in  fun  may  be  as  valuable  as  sym 
pathy  in  sorrow.  A  good  play  inspires  us  to 
comply  with  Paul's  injunction:  We  weep  with 
those  that  weep  and  rejoice  with  those  that  re 
joice. 

We  need  rest.  America  would  easily  turn 
into  a  great  factory  and  Americans  into  machine- 
like  drudges,  if  there  were  not  literature  to  take 
us  out  of  ourselves;  and  the  theatre  is  enacted 
literature.  The  monotony  of  the  kitchen,  the 
more  monotonous  monotony  of  the  shop,  would 
become  deadening  if  there  were  no  provision  for 
occasional  forgetfulness.  To  many  Americans 
the  theatre  is  an  oasis  of  restful  enjoyment  set 
in  the  midst  of  a  desert  of  unvarying  toil.  I 
suspect  that  my  experience  is  not  uncommon. 
Reading  stimulates;  a  concert  inspires;  a  play 
rests.  For  two  hours  I  am  passive,  played  upon 
by  a  story  which  drives  all  cares  and  perplexities 
out  of  my  mind;  and  I  come  away  from  a  clean 
and  healthful  play  refreshed  in  spirit  as,  from  a 
swim  in  the  ocean,  refreshed  in  body. 

17 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

But  the  highest  service  of  the  theatre  is  its 
inspirational  power.  Great  literature  is  an  in 
terpreter  of  life;  a  great  actor  is  an  interpreter 
of  great  literature.  If  it  was  worth  while  for 
Shakespeare  to  write  "The  Merchant  of  Venice," 
it  was  worth  while  for  Edwin  Booth  and  Ma 
dame  Modjeska  to  interpret  it.  Let  me  explain 
by  an  illustration  what  I  mean  by  interpretation 
of  literature. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  a  remarkable  elo 
cutionist.  He  had  to  a  very  unusual  degree  the 
power  to  put  himself  into  any  mood  of  feeling 
that  he  wished  to  illustrate  and  to  employ  in 
its  illustration  the  appropriate  tones  of  voice  and, 
if  need  be,  the  appropriate  attitude  of  body. 
He  was  preaching  once  upon  his  favourite  theme, 
the  infinite  pity  of  Jesus  to  sinners,  when  he 
stopped  abruptly  and  said:  Someone  will  ask 
me,  did  not  Jesus  also  condemn  sinners  with 
wrathful  indignation?  That  depends,  he  re 
plied,  upon  how  you  interpret  him.  Then  he 
took  up  his  pocket  Bible,  which  was  his  con 
stant  companion,  and  read  a  few  verses  from 
the  denunciation  of  the  Pharisees  in  the  twenty- 
third  chapter  of  Matthew,  putting  into  his  voice, 
and  doubtless  for  the  moment  into  his  spirit, 
the  wrathful  indignation  of  a  just  judge:  "Woe 
unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites!  for 
ye  are  like  unto  whited  sepulchres,  which  out- 

18 


EDWIN  BOOTH 

wardly  appear  beautiful,  but  inwardly  are  full 
of  dead  men's  bones,  and  of  all  uncleanness." 
Then,  after  a  moment's  pause,  he  read  the  same 
words  again,  but  now  as  a  lament,  with  tears  in 
his  voice,  as  of  a  mother  weeping  over  her  child. 
Then,  without  further  comment,  he  went  on 
with  his  sermon.  He  had  in  less  than  three 
minutes  and  by  the  actor's  art  given  two  inter 
pretations  to  that  passage;  and  since  then  it  has 
had  for  me  a  new  meaning. 

This  is  what  I  mean  by  saying  that  the  great 
actor  is  an  interpreter  of  great  literature.  It 
is  narrated  in  the  book  of  Nehemiah  that,  at  a 
camp-meeting  there  described,  the  Levites  "read 
in  the  book,  in  the  law  of  God,  distinctly;  and 
they  gave  the  sense,  so  that  they  understood  the 
reading."  If  ministers  could  cultivate  the  ac 
tor's  art  sufficiently  to  enable  them  to  feel  the 
mood  of  the  sacred  writers  and  interpret  that 
mood  by  their  voice,  the  Bible  reading  in  church 
services  would  not  be,  as  it  now  often  is,  an  act 
of  almost  unmeaning  formalism. 

Edwin  Booth's  character  and  career  illustrated 
these  principles. 

His  father,  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  was  a  fa 
mous  actor.  Nature's  equipment  impelled  the 
son  to  follow  the  father  on  the  stage.  "I  had 
rather,"  he  wrote  his  daughter,  "be  an  obscure 
farmer,  a  hayseed  from  Wayback,  or  a  cabinet- 

19 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

maker,  as  my  father  advised,  than  the  most  dis 
tinguished  man  on  earth.  But  Nature  cast  me 
for  the  part  she  found  me  best  fitted  for,  and  I 
have  had  to  play  it,  and  must  play  it  till  the 
curtain  falls." 

At  first  he  took  such  parts  as  were  assigned 
him,  generally  comic  parts  in  farces  and  bur 
lesques.  But  he  was  not  long  in  graduating, 
and  his  wonderful  success  as  Richard  III, 
acted  for  the  benefit  of  a  comrade,  in  which 
he  showed  the  advantage  of  studies  quietly 
pursued,  introduced  him  at  once  to  a  first 
rank  among  the  actors  of  his  day.  This  early 
success  was  partly  due  doubtless  to  an  in 
herited  dramatic  talent  and  to  his  early  com 
panionship  with  his  father,  but  there  are  abun 
dant  indications  in  his  daughter's  charming 
biographical  sketch  and  in  the  letters  she  has  pub 
lished  that  from  the  first  a  religious  impulse  in 
spired  him;  that  the  following  sentences  penned 
to  a  friend  expressed,not  the  fleeting  impulse  of  the 
moment,  but  the  dominating  principle  of  his  life: 
"I  cannot  help  but  believe  that  there  is  sufficient 
importance  in  my  art  to  interest  them  still;  that 
to  a  higher  influence  than  the  world  believes  I 
am  moved  by  I  owe  the  success  I  have  achieved." 

This  spiritual  faith  carried  him  through  experi 
ences  of  great  personal  sorrow  and  professional 
disappointment.  His  wife,  to  whom  he  was  de- 

20 


EDWIN  BOOTH 

votedly  attached,  died,  leaving  him  to  be  both 
father  and  mother  to  the  daughter  two  years 
old.  Writing  to  the  clergyman  who  had  per 
formed  the  marriage  ceremony  and  had  written 
him  a  letter  of  sympathy,  Mr.  Booth  said:  "You 
have  been  pleased  to  mention  my  art  and  to  ex 
press  the  hope  that  I  may  be  spared  to  serve  it 
long  and  faithfully;  if  it  be  His  will,  I  bow  be 
fore  it  meekly  as  I  now  bear  the  terrible  affliction 
He  has  seen  fit  to  lay  upon  me;  but  I  cannot  re 
press  an  inward  hope  that  I  may  soon  rejoin 
her  who,  next  to  God,  was  the  object  of  my  de 
votion."  Two  years  later  the  sorrow  still  re 
mained,  but  his  faith  in  immortality  and  in  his 
art  as  a  divinely  inspired  service  had  grown 
clearer  and  stronger:  "Two  years  ago  to-day," 
he  writes  to  a  friend,  "I  last  saw  May  alive! 
But,  my  dear  friend,  a  light  from  heaven  has 
settled  fairly  and  fully  in  my  soul,  and  I  regard 
death,  as  God  intended  we  should  understand  it, 
as  the  breaking  of  eternal  daylight  and  a  birth 
day  of  the  soul.  I  feel  that  all  my  actions  have 
been  and  are  influenced  by  her  whose  love  is  to 
me  the  strength  and  wisdom  of  my  spirit. 
WTiatever  I  may  do  of  serious  import,  I  regard 
it  as  a  performance  of  a  sacred  duty  I  owe  to  all 
that  is  pure  and  honest  in  my  nature — a  duty 
to  the  very  religion  of  my  heart." 

Nine  years  later  the  theatre  that  he  had  built 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

and  in  and  by  which  he  had  helped  to  raise  the 
dramatic  standards  in  New  York  City  to  some 
thing  which  should  at  least  approximate  his 
ideals,  had  failed  and  he  was  bankrupt.  "My 
disappointment  is  great,  to  be  sure,"  he  wrote 
to  a  friend,  "but  I  have  the  consciousness  of 
having  tried  to  do  what  I  deemed  to  be  my 
duty.  Since  the  talent  God  has  given  me  can 
be  made  available  for  no  other  purpose,  I  be 
lieve  the  object  to  which  I  devote  it  to  be 
worthy  of  self-sacrifice." 

This  spirit  of  consecration  of  what  he  be 
lieved  was  a  divinely  given  power  to  a  divinely 
ordained  purpose  inspired  and  guided  him 
through  the  ordinary  experiences  of  his  life.  A 
clergyman  once  wrote  him  asking  if  he  could  not 
be  admitted  to  his  theatre  by  a  side  or  rear  door, 
as  he  preferred  to  run  no  risk  of  being  seen  by 
any  of  his  parishioners;  to  whom  Mr.  Booth  re 
plied,  "There  is  no  door  in  my  theatre  through 
which  God  cannot  see."  The  theatre  while  it 
continued  under  Booth's  control  was  maintained 
as  one  should  be  which  lay  open  to  God's  sight. 
Mr.  William  Winter,  whose  dramatic  ideals  were 
unquestionably  high,  says  of  it  that  its  affairs 
"were  conducted  in  a  steadfast  spirit  of  sympa 
thy  with  what  is  pure  and  good  in  dramatic 
art."  And  he  quotes  two  testimonies  in  support 
of  this  statement:  one  from  Joseph  Jefferson: 


EDWIN  BOOTH 

"Booth's  Theatre  is  conducted  as  a  theatre 
should  be — like  a  church  behind  the  curtain  and 
like  a  counting-house  in  front  of  it,"  and  one 
from  Dion  Boucicault:  "I  have  been  in  every 
theatre,  I  think,  in  civilized  Christendom,  and 
Booth's  is  the  only  theatre  that  I  have  ever  seen 
properly  managed." 

The  prevailing  attitude  of  the  Church  toward 
the  theatre  and  the  acting  profession  was  one 
of  bitter  hostility  in  1877,  much  modified  since; 
but  it  elicited  from  Mr.  Booth  no  word  of  ill 
temper  or  counter-hostility.  The  only  response 
to  that  hostility  which  I  have  been  able  to  find 
in  his  correspondence  is  in  a  letter  to  a  clerical 
friend,  who  was  an  exception  to  the  general 
rule  among  the  clergy  and  to  whom  he  wrote: 
" I  am  glad  that  I  have  been  the  cause 
of  so  much  pleasure  to  you  and  rejoice  in 
your  strong  charity  against  prejudice.  If  the 
Church  would  teach  discrimination  between  the 
true  and  the  false  in  my  profession,  instead  of 
condemning  both  as  worthless,  to  say  the  least, 
the  stage  would  serve  the  pulpit  as  a  loyal 
subject,  and  both  go  shoulder  to  shoulder  not 
with  'frowning  brow  to  brow'  through  the 

fight." 

His  life  was  in  some  respects  a  lonely  one. 
How  lonely  is  indicated  by  the  one  incident  in 
which  his  life  and  mine  came  together.  Heartily 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

sympathizing  with  his  endeavour  to  secure  an 
elevating  and  inspiring  drama  in  New  York,  I 
wrote  to  ask  of  him  an  article  on  the  subject,  and 
received  in  reply  the  following  letter,  which  was 
published  with  his  consent  in  the  then  "  Christian 
Union': 

Baltimore,  April  18,  1878. 
LYMAN  ABBOTT,  ESQ. 
DEAR  SIR — 

On  my  arrival  here  I  found  your  favour  of  1st  inst. 
but  have  been  prevented  from  answering  it  until  to-day. 

Having  no  literary  ability  whatever  I  must  decline 
your  flattering  invitation;  nor  do  I  know  how  to  aid  the 
worthy  cause  you  advocate;  could  I  do  so,  be  assured  it 
should  be  freely  done. 

My  knowledge  of  the  modern  drama  is  so  very  meagre 
that  I  never  permit  my  wife  or  daughter  to  witness  a 
play  without  previously  ascertaining  its  character.  This 
is  the  method  I  pursue;  I  can  suggest  no  other — unless 
it  might  be  by  means  of  a  "dramatic  censor"  whose  taste 
or  judgment  might,  however,  be  frequently  at  fault. 

If  the  management  of  theatres  could  be  denied  to  specu 
lators  and  placed  in  the  hands  of  actors  who  value  their 
reputations  and  respect  their  calling,  the  stage  would  at 
least  afford  healthy  recreation,  if  not,  indeed,  a  whole 
some  stimulus  to  the  exercise  of  noble  sentiments.  But 
while  the  theatre  is  permitted  to  be  a  mere  shop  for  gain — 
open  to  every  huckster  of  immoral  gimcracks,  there  is  no 
other  way  to  discriminate  between  the  pure  and  base  than 
through  the  experience  of  others. 

Truly  yours. 

EDWIN  BOOTH. 
24 


EDWIN  BOOTH 

There  were  a  few  actors  who  shared  Mr. 
Booth's  spirit  and  to  whom  acting  was  truly  an 
art.  But  the  stage  was  passing  under  the  con 
trol  of  money-making  managers,  and  money- 
making  and  artistic  ambitions  never  go  well 
together.  Mr.  Booth  was  not  a  good  business 
man,  and  lack  of  good  business  management, 
not  of  good  dramatic  management,  caused  the 
failure  of  his  theatre.  "Had  I  given  proper 
attention  to  my  dollar-and-cent  dealings  with 
men,"  he  writes  to  his  daughter,  "I  would  now 
be  at  least  a  millionaire,  perhaps  doubly  so;  but 
I  never  considered  that  side  of  the  question, 
taking  from  managers  just  what  they  offered." 
He  defines  in  his  letters  his  ambition,  nowhere 
perhaps  more  clearly  than  in  this  pregnant 
sentence:  "He  [Betterton]  is  my  ideal  of  an 
actor,  both  on  and  off  the  stage.  He  aimed  at 
truth  in  his  art  and  lived  it  at  home."  Suc 
cesses  always  stimulated  Booth  to  new  effort. 
"Life,"  he  wrote  to  his  daughter,  "is  a  great 
big  spelling  book,  and  on  every  page  we  turn,  the 
words  grow  harder  to  understand  the  meaning 
of.  But  there  is  a  meaning,  and  when  the  last 
leaf  flops  over  we'll  know  the  whole  lesson  by 
heart."  He  kept  up  his  studies,  professional 
and  other,  to  the  very  end  of  his  life,  and  this 
included  a  study  of  himself  as  impersonator. 
"When  I  am  en  wrapt  in  a  character  I  am  im- 

25 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

personating,"  he  wrote,  "there  seems  to  be  an 
other  and  a  distinct  individuality,  another  me 
sitting  in  judgment  on  myself."  This  judgment 
was  not  always  encouraging.  Mr.  Bispham 
in  his  autobiography  tells  us  that  one  night 
when  Booth  seemed  to  have  attained  the 
very  pinnacle  of  his  powers  a  friend  went  round 
to  congratulate  him  on  his  great  success  and 
"  found  Booth  with  his  head  upon  his  hands  in 
the  deepest  dejection  from  which  not  even  the 
praise  of  his  old  friend  could  arouse  him,  dis 
gusted  at  having  given  so  miserable  a  per 
formance." 

From  this  double  consciousness  Booth  seems 
never  to  have  escaped.  "I  believe,"  he  writes, 
"you  understand  how  completely  I  'ain't  here' 
most  of  the  time.  It's  an  awful  thing  to  be 
somebody  else  all  the  while."  Reserved  he 
was,  self-restrained,  but  not  internally  placid, 
and  never  self -conceited.  Self-control  to  such 
a  man  is  not  the  easy  virtue  it  is  to  simple 
natures.  He  had  inherited  the  drink  appetite 
from  his  father;  conquered  it  completely,  but 
not  without  a  hard  battle.  Nor  was  that  his 
only  struggle.  The  very  ability  to  interpret 
different  human  passions  was  the  mark  of  a 
composite  character.  "Much  of  my  life's 
struggle,"  he  wrote  his  daughter,  "has  been 
with  myself,  and  the  pain  I  have  endured  in 

26 


EDWIN  BOOTH 

overcoming  and  correcting  the  evils  of  my  un 
trained  disposition  has  been  very  great." 

I  must  stop.  This  sketch  has  already  over 
run  the  limits  I  had  set  myself.  Readers  who 
wish  an  analysis  of  Mr.  Booth's  art  upon  the 
stage  will  find  it  in  William  Winter's  "Life  of  Ed 
win  Booth."  I  have  wished  in  this  sketch  to  in 
troduce  the  man  to  readers  to  whom  he  is  known 
only  as  an  actor.  For  the  re-reading  of  Mr. 
Booth's  letters  has  not  only  reawakened  my 
admiration  for  this  great  interpreter  of  the  great 
est  literature,  but  also  a  new  sense  of  indignation 
that  so  pure  and  brave  a  man  should  have  been 
left  to  fight  his  battle  for  a  purer  theatre  with  so 
little  sympathy  and  help  from  the  Christian 
Church  and  the  Christian  ministry. 


THE     SMILEY     BROTHERS,     LOVERS     OF 
HOSPITALITY 

IN  THE  State  of  New  York,  running  ap 
proximately  parallel  to  the  Catskill  range 
of  mountains,  is  a  long  and  narrow  range 
with  elevations  varying  from  six  hundred  feet  to 
twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  feet  above  the  valleys 
on  either  side.  This  is  known  as  the  Sha- 
wangunk  Mountain,  locally  pronounced  Shon- 
gurn.  At  a  point  in  this  range,  about  fifteen 
miles  from  the  Hudson  River  at  Poughkeepsie, 
is  a  spot  of  peculiar  romantic  beauty.  A  cliff 
here  rises  about  one  hundred  feet  above  the 
mountain  edge  and  at  the  foot  of  this  cliff  is  a 
small  lake  perhaps  half  a  mile  long  and  an 
eighth  of  a  mile  wide,  which  bears  the  Indian 
name  of  Mohonk  (Lake  of  the  Sky).  At  this 
point  the  mountain  is  composed  of  enormous 
rocks  piled  on  each  other  in  great  confusion,  as 
though  some  grotesque  Thor  had  thrown  them 
up  in  sheer  joyous  exhibition  of  his  strength, 
leaving  them  to  lie  there  as  they  had  fallen.  It 
is  reported  that  adventurous  boys,  in  times  past, 
have  made  their  way  down  through  the  crev 
ices  of  these  rocks  from  the  summit  to  the  val- 

28 


THE  SMILEY  BROTHERS 

ley  below.  A  geological  friend  of  mine  said  to 
a  local  resident,  acting  as  his  guide:  "I  wonder 
by  what  great  upheaval  Nature  produced  this 
wonderful  rock  pile."  The  guide  rebuked  his 
ignorance:  "What!"  said  he,  "have  you  never 
read  how  at  the  crucifixion  the  earth  did  quake 
and  the  rocks  were  rent?"  He  regarded  the 
earthquake  at  the  crucifixion  as  a  world-wide 
phenomenon  as  some  scholars  in  past  times  re 
garded  the  deluge  as  a  world -enveloping  flood. 

In  1869  there  stood  on  the  shore  of  this  lake 
and  under  the  shadow  of  this  cliff  a  cabaret  with 
a  bar-room,  a  dance  hall,  and  ten  bedrooms  with 
bunks  for  beds,  and  straw  mattresses  and  one 
quilt  each  for  bedding.  When  a  visitor  de 
manded  dinner,  the  Irish  boy  would  catch  a 
chicken,  kill  it  in  front  of  the  house,  and  pass  it 
over  to  the  woman  to  cook."  There  were  some 
fish  in  the  lake  and  some  small  game  in  the 
woods.  How  far  the  fish  and  the  game,  how  far 
the  bar-room  and  its  contents  were  the  attraction 
for  the  picnic  parties  that  patronized  the  place, 
the  reader  must  be  left  to  judge. 

One  day  in  1869  Mr.  Alfred  Smiley,  who  was 
then  living  near  Poughkeepsie,  took  a  day  for 
an  excursion  to  the  top  of  the  mountain  to  see 
the  lake,  which  had  already  acquired  a  consid 
erable  local  reputation.  The  natural  beauty 
of  the  scene  captivated  him;  he  persuaded  his 

29 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

twin  brother  Albert,  then  conducting  a  very 
successful  school  at  Providence,  Rhode  Island, 
to  come  to  Poughkeepsie  and  share  with  him 
the  joy  of  his  discovery.  As  a  result  of  that 
visit,  Mr.  Albert  Smiley  put  all  the  money  he 
had,  with  a  considerable  sum  that  he  borrowed, 
into  a  purchase  of  the  place  with  approximately 
three  hundred  acres  of  wild  mountain  and  forest 
land.  The  original  proprietor  doubtless  con 
sidered  himself  lucky  to  find  a  purchaser  fool 
enough  to  take  this  unpromising  place  off  his 
hands.  He  is  quoted  as  saying:  "I  suppose 
that  the  Creator  made  everything  for  some  use; 
but  what  in  the  world  he  ever  made  this  pizen 
laurel  for  I  can't  see.  It  never  grows  big  enough 
for  firewood  and  the  cattle  won't  eat  it." 

From  the  beginning  the  brothers  Smiley  be 
lieved  that  there  were  people  in  America  who 
wanted  to  get  away  from  the  excitements  of 
society,  as  well  as  from  the  entanglements  of 
business.  From  the  first,  therefore,  the  new  hotel 
was  administered  on  Quaker  principles  and  per 
vaded  by  a  Quaker  spirit.  When  I  visited  it  in 
1872,  Mr.  Albert  Smiley  was  still  carrying  on  the 
school  at  Providence;  the  hotel  was  in  charge 
of  his  brother  Alfred.  The  bar-room  and  the 
dance  hall  had  been  abolished;  beds  had  taken 
the  place  of  bunks;  a  reading  room  had  been  sub 
stituted  for  the  bar-room;  and  entertainments 

30 


THE  SMILEY  BROTHERS 

provided  by  the  guests  themselves  had  been  sub 
stituted  for  the  dance  hall.  The  house  had  been 
enlarged  to  accommodate  about  forty  guests;  the 
atmosphere  of  the  house  was  that  of  a  home,  not 
that  of  a  cabaret;  there  was  a  service  of  worship 
in  the  parlour  on  Sundays  and  morning  prayers 
for  such  as  cared  to  attend  them  during  the  week. 
It  was  understood  that  cards,  dancing,  and  drink 
ing  were  prohibited;  but  there  were  not  then, 
and  there  never  have  been,  printed  rules  or 
regulations;  the  prohibition  is  enforced  by  com 
mon  consent,  and  it  is  very  rarely  the  case  that 
even  to-day,  in  a  hotel  with  accommodations  for 
upward  of  four  hundred,  any  other  enforcement 
is  required. 

The  beauty  of  the  place  and  the  home  at 
mosphere  of  the  hotel  so  impressed  me  that  the 
following  year  I  returned  with  an  artist  to  ob 
tain  sketches  for  an  illustrated  article  which  was 
published  in  the  Illustrated  Christian  Weekly, 
of  which  I  was  then  editor. 

When  I  next  visited  Lake  Mohonk,  in  1884, 
Mr.  Albert  Smiley  had  left  his  school  and  had 
come  to  make  Lake  Mohonk  his  home.  The 
boarding  house  had  become  a  hotel  capable  of 
accommodating  some  three  hundred  guests;  the 
estate  had  been  increased  by  successive  pur 
chases  to  one  of  over  a  thousand  acres;  miles  of 
roads  had  been  built  within  the  estate  and  in- 

31 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

numerable  footpaths  had  been  opened  through 
the  woods  and  among  the  rocks;  Mr.  Alfred 
Smiley  had  finally  left  Providence  and  changed 
the  profession  of  teacher  for  that  of  hotel 
keeper.  Mr.  Albert  Smiley  had  purchased  a 
similar  estate  seven  miles  distant  upon  the  same 
range  and  erected  a  hotel  upon  the  shore  of  a 
lake  which  gave  its  name  of  Minnewaska  to  the 
twin  enterprise. 

Who  that  has  ever  read  * 'Nicholas  Nickleby" 
did  not  regard  the  Cheery ble  Brothers  as  a  pretty 
fancy  of  an  often  extravagantly  fanciful  novel 
ist?  "What  was  the  amazement  of  Nicholas 
when  his  conductor  advanced  and  exchanged  his 
warm  greeting  with  another  old  gentleman,  the 
very  type  and  model  of  himself — the  same  face, 
thesamefigure,thesamecoat,  waistcoat,  and  neck 
cloth,  the  same  breeches  and  gaiters — nay,  there 
was  the  very  same  white  hat  hanging  against 
the  wall!"  But  it  is  an  old  saying  that  fact  is 
stranger  than  fiction;  which  is  only  another  way 
of  saying,  cynics  to  the  contrary  notwithstand 
ing,  that  life  furnishes  illustrations  of  ideas  which 
surpass  those  of  the  novelist.  The  portrait  of 
the  Smiley  brothers  is  best  given  in  the  words 
of  Mr.  Albert  Smiley : 

When  my  brother  Alfred  and  I  were  born  we  were  so 
much  alike  that  our  mother  tied  ribbons  on  either  our  arms 
or  legs,  I  do  not  remember  which,  to  distinguish  us. 

32 


THE  SMILEY  BROTHERS 

None  of  our  neighbours  or  teachers  knew  us  apart;  we 
always  worked  together,  walked  together,  slept  together, 
had  measles,  mumps,  and  whooping  cough  together;  never 
had  a  single  article  of  clothing  or  money  or  anything  else 
separate  for  twenty-seven  years.  In  the  morning  we 
jumped  into  the  first  suit  of  clothes  that  came  in  our  way, 
no  matter  who  wore  it  the  day  before.  All  our  studies 
and  reading  were  from  one  set  of  books,  reading  and  study 
ing  simultaneously.  Until  we  were  twenty-seven  years 
old,  when  my  brother  married,  we  had  never  had  anything 
to  be  called  "mine,"  but  always  "ours."  At  my  brother's 
marriage  we  had  to  divide  clothing  and  some  other  things, 
but  till  his  death,  four  years  since,  we  had  many  of  our  in 
terests  in  common. 

In  1884  this  identity  of  appearance  still  con 
tinued.  Strangers  could  not  easily  distinguish 
between  the  brothers  when  they  were  together, 
and  when  they  were  not  together  never  could 
tell  which  was  Albert  and  which  was  Alfred. 
Even  the  brothers  could  not  always  tell.  They 
once  made  an  appointment  to  meet  in  a  hotel  in 
New  York.  Albert  arrived  first;  walking  down 
a  corrider  he  saw  his  brother  approaching;  he 
reached  out  his  hand  to  grasp  the  outstretched 
hand  of  his  brother,  with  the  greeting,  "Are 
you  here  already?"  and  found  that  he  was  ad 
dressing  his  own  image  in  a  mirror. 

They  were  as  much  alike  in  spirit  and  tem 
perament  as  in  appearance.  The  same  simplic 
ity  that  had  characterized  the  boarding  house 

33 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

with  forty  guests  characterized  the  twin  hotels. 
The  same  piety  characterized  both  men,  the 
same  liberty  under  law  characterized  both 
hotels.  If  I  write  here  only  of  Mr.  Albert 
Smiley  it  is  because  he  is  the  only  one  I  at  all 
intimately  knew. 

Some  men  are  distinguished  from  their  fellows 
by  the  possession  of  one  characteristic  in  an  ab 
normal  degree.  I  was  told  a  few  years  ago  of  a 
little  girl,  not  yet  in  her  teens,  who  came  into 
the  laboratory  of  her  scientific  grandfather  with 
an  insect  for  his  inspection.  "He  is  a  very 
naughty  fly,"  she  said,  "he  keeps  biting  me." 
When  she  opened  her  fist  she  disclosed  a 
wasp.  She  was  a  born  scientist.  Investigation 
was  to  her  a  passion.  But  some  men  are  made 
great  by  the  possession  of  seemingly  contra 
dictory  qualities  harmoniously  working  in  a 
well-balanced  character.  Such  was  the  greatness 
of  Mr.  Albert  Smiley.  He  was  a  man  of  vision. 
At  the  first  sight  of  Lake  Mohonk  he  perceived 
the  possibilities  of  a  great  estate;  but  he  was  also 
a  man  of  practical  judgment  and  did  not  retire 
from  his  successful  school  until  he  had  laid  up 
enough  money  to  take  with  safety  the  hazard 
of  abandoning  a  profession  with  which  he  was 
familiar  for  one  of  which  he  knew  nothing.  He 
was  cautious,  always  looked  before  he  leaped; 
but  when  he  had  looked  he  did  not  hesitate  to 

34 


THE  SMILEY  BROTHERS 

leap.  When  he  had  once  definitely  formed 
his  purpose  to  provide  for  persons  like-minded 
with  himself  a  true  summer  rest,  he  gave  him 
self  without  reserve  to  the  achievement  of  that 
ideal.  Whatever  interfered  with  it  he  regarded 
as  an  obstacle  to  be,  if  possible,  overcome. 
When  a  railway  proposed  to  build  a  branch  to 
the  foot  of  the  mountain  he  discouraged  the 
proposal;  it  might  bring  him  customers,  but  it 
would  hazard  the  repose  that  he  wished  to  pro 
vide.  When  an  inn  just  beyond  the  bounds  of 
his  estate  threatened  that  repose,  he  bought  the 
inn.  He  was  a  lover  of  liberty;  and  ordered 
liberty  is  a  condition  of  repose  of  the  spirit. 
Therefore,  he  put  up  few  signs  that  indicated  re 
straints  on  liberty.  The  only  such  signs  to  be 
seen  are  some  scattered  through  the  woods  to 
protect  the  trees  and  flowers  and  one  at  every 
entrance  of  his  grounds  forbidding  the  use  of 
automobiles. 

But  when  enforcement  of  the  common  law  of 
his  estate  was  required  he  did  not  lack  the 
courage  to  enforce  it.  A  wealthy  guest  came 
with  a  large  party  prepared  to  spend  a  consider 
able  time  and  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  as 
sumed  that,  because  of  his  patronage,  the  hotel 
would  not  enforce  against  him  the  rule  pro 
hibiting  the  use  of  liquor,  and  he  brought  down 
his  bottle  with  him  to  the  dinner  table.  Mr. 

35 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

Smiley  said  nothing  until  the  dinner  was  over 
and  then  notified  his  would-be  guest  that  the 
rooms  assigned  to  him  were  no  longer  to  be  at 
his  service;  that  he  was,  in  short,  an  "undesir 
able  citizen."  Another  man  of  the  same  type, 
disregarding  a  sign  at  the  gateway  that  auto 
mobiles  were  not  allowed,  drove  up  in  his  tour 
ing  car  to  the  door.  Mr.  Smiley  ordered  the 
automobile  to  be  driven  by  a  special  road  to  the 
nearest  entrance.  After  dinner,  he  provided  a 
carriage  to  carry  the  unwelcome  guest  and  his 
family  to  the  same  entrance  and  refused  to  take 
any  pay  for  the  dinner  that  the  guests  had  re 
ceived. 

Such  incidents  get  promptly  into  wide  cir 
culation  and  serve  quite  adequately  as  law  en 
forcements.  When  depredations  were  commit 
ted  by  barbarians,  possessing  the  appearance 
but  not  the  reality  of  civilization,  he  neither 
submitted  to  the  destruction  of  his  property  nor 
issued  new  prohibitions  to  protect  it,  nor  called 
on  the  officers  of  the  law  for  protection.  He 
appealed,  and  not  unsuccessfully,  to  the  con 
science  of  the  community  and  to  the  depredators 
themselves.  He  provided  a  Picnic  Lodge  with 
grounds  surrounding  it  for  the  free  use  of  picnic 
parties,  and  then  sent  a  courteous  letter  to  the 
newspaper  press  in  which  he  narrated  some  of 
the  abuses  that  had  been  perpetrated,  and 


THE  SMILEY  BROTHERS 

prescribed  certain  rules  which  all  picnic  parties 
should  observe.  The  letter  was  very  widely 
published  and  editorially  commended.  "I  must 
ask,"  he  said,  "my  friends  and  neighbours  and  all 
who  bring  or  send  parties  here  to  see  that  no 
damage  is  done  to  property  of  any  kind,"  and 
he  added,  "unless  the  few  can  be  prevented  from 
damaging  property  it  will  become  positively 
necessary  to  exclude  all  picnic  parties  from 
the  estate."  This  appeal  to  the  public  and  the 
picnickers  themselves  was  sufficient;  at  least  in 
my  riding  and  walking  about  the  grounds  to-day 
[June,  1921]  I  see  no  signs  of  depredations 
against  which  in  1906  Mr.  Smiley  very  justly 
protested. 

Since  the  financial  success  of  Mr.  Smiley's  ex 
perience  has  proved  that  he  correctly  inter 
preted  a  before  unrecognized  demand,  other  ho 
tels  formed  as  his  plan  and  inspired  by  his  spirit 
have  been  successfully  established,  and  many 
hotels  which  have  neither  vanished  card  play 
ing  and  dancing  from  their  parlour  nor  provided 
libraries  for  their  guests  during  the  week  nor 
religious  services  on  the  Sabbath,  have  become 
less  noisily  gay  and  more  quietly  comfortable. 
At  the  same  time  summer  camps  in  increasing 
numbers  furnish  rural  recreations  and  the  sim 
ple  life  to  an  increasing  number  of  toilers  from 
the  towns  and  cities  who  want  something  bet- 

37 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

ter  for  summer  recreation  than  a  mere  change 
of  place  in  which  to  continue  their  city  amuse 
ments.  But  that  Mr.  Smiley's  experiment  in 
1871  was  a  surprising  invocation  is  indicated 
by  the  following  incident  for  which  I  am  in 
debted  to  a  western  correspondent. 

A  Kentucky  tourist  travelling  in  California 
came  upon  Mr.  Smiley's  beautiful  winter  home 
in  Riverside,  created  by  his  genius  out  of  a 
desert  land,  and  the  following  conversation  en 
sued  between  the  Kentuckian  and  the  driver 
of  his  carriage: 

Tourist.  That's  a  beautiful  place.  Whom 
does  it  belong  to? 

Driver.    A  Mr.  Smiley. 

Tourist.  It  must  have  cost  a  lot.  How  did 
he  make  his  money? 

Driver.  By  a  queer  kind  of  hotel  in  New 
York. 

Tourist.    What  kind  of  a  hotel? 

Driver.  Well,  he  didn't  have  any  bar,  or 
allow  any  wine  to  be  served  on  the  table;  they 
didn't  allow  card  playing,  or  dancing  in  the 
parlour;  guests  were  not  received  nor  taken 
away  on  Sunday;  they  have  family  prayers  in 
the  parlour  every  morning  and  church  services 
every  Sunday. 

Tourist.  Where  in  hell  can  they  get  patrons 
for  such  a  hotel? 

38 


THE  SMILEY  BROTHERS 

Driver.  They  do  not  get  their  patrons  from 
that  region. 

Under  the  administration  of  Mr.  Albert  Smiley 
and  his  younger  brother  Daniel — who  with  his 
wife  have  been  active  partners  with  Mr.  Albert 
Smiley  since  1890  and  are  with  their  sons  carry 
ing  on  the  enterprise  in  the  same  spirit  since  the 
death  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Albert  Smiley — the  Lake 
Mohonk  House  has  been  more  than  a  home  of  rest 
for  the  overworked  and  the  brain- weary;  it  has 
been  a  nesting  place  for  reform  movements. 

Miss  M.  P.  Follet,  a  few  years  ago,  published 
a  notable  book  entitled  "The  New  State." 
It  might  better  have  been  entitled  "The  New 
Democracy."  The  cardinal  doctrine  of  this 
book  may  be  concisely  stated  thus :  Democracy 
is  not  merely  government  by  the  majority.  It 
is  creative.  By  an  interchange  of  conflicting 
views  in  a  spirit  of  mutual  respect  a  new  view  is 
created  which  embodies  some  elements  of  these 
conflicting  opinions,  but  not  all  the  elements  of 
any  one  of  them.  The  Indian  Conference  initi 
ated  by  Mr.  Albert  Smiley  in  1884  at  Lake  Mo- 
honk  affords  the  best  illustration  of  "The  New 
Democracy"  I  have  ever  seen. 

The  success  of  the  earlier  meetings  was  such 
that  when  the  Spanish-American  War  brought 
under  the  protectorate  of  the  United  States 
Porto  Rico  and  the  Philippines,  the  Indian 

39 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

conferences  were  broadened  so  as  to  include 
"all  Dependent  Peoples"  Later  a  second  series 
of  conferences  were  called  to  consider  what 
means,  if  any,  were  practicable  to  substitute  an 
appeal  to  reason  for  the  appeal  to  force  as  a 
means  of  settling  international  differences.  The 
Conference  possessed  no  formal  organization,  The 
attendants  were  not  delegates  but  invited  guests 
of  Mr.  Smiley.  From  twelve  at  the  first  con 
ference  in  1884  they  grew  by  natural  accretion 
to  three  hundred  before  1913.  They  included 
men  and  women  of  every  variety  of  tempera 
ment  and  opinion.  Roman  Catholics,  Protestants, 
and  Jews,  High  Churchmen  and  Friends,  Re 
publicans  and  Democrats,  government  officials 
and  newspaper  critics,  Radicals  and  Conser 
vatives  met  to  engage  in  a  perfectly  free  Forum, 
not  to  win  a  victory  over  each  other,  but  to  com 
prehend  each  other.  Factions  were  difficult  and 
factional  victories  were  impossible.  For  from  the 
first  it  was  agreed  that  no  opinion  should  ever 
be  affirmed  to  be  the  opinion  of  the  Conference 
except  by  unanimity.  A  platform  committee 
was  appointed  at  the  opening  of  the  Conference; 
it  watched  the  debate,  framed  a  platform  in 
tended  to  express  a  conclusion  to  which  all  could 
agree,  and  reserved  all  disputed  questions  for 
subsequent  consideration.  When,  therefore,  a 
committee  from  this  conference  went  to  Wash- 

40 


THE  SMILEY  BROTHERS 

ington  with  its  well-thought-out  policy,  it  had 
a  real  political  power,  because  its  platform  was 
the  expressed  opinion  of  Roman  Catholics  and 
Protestants,  Reformers  in  the  East  and  dwellers 
on  the  Western  Border,  Idealists  from  the  library, 
and  practical  experts  from  the  field.  I  remember 
one  visit  we,  as  a  committee,  made  to  Washing 
ton  just  after  Mr.  Cleveland's  election  and  his 
saying  to  me  afterward:  "I  had  the  idea  when 
I  took  the  Presidency  that  we  ought  to  put  all 
the  Indians  in  one  reservation  under  one  con 
trol,  but  the  friends  of  the  Indians  sat  down  on 
that  proposition  with  such  determination  that 
I  gave  it  up." 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  one  influence  has  had 
so  much  to  do  with  producing  the  revolution 
wrought  in  our  Indian  policy  in  the  last  quarter 
of  a  century  as  the  influence  exercised  by  the 
late  Indian  Conference  at  Mohonk,  and  I  am 
sure  that  the  proposal  to  establish  an  Inter 
national  Supreme  Court,  somewhat  analogous 
in  its  nature  and  functions  to  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  first  came  from  the  Lake  Mo- 
honk  Conference  on  International  Arbitration 
in  1895.  It  would  probably  have  been  adopted 
nearly  ten  years  ago  by  the  civilized  powers  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  jealousy  of  some  of  the 
South  American  republics  and  the  bitter  hos 
tility  of  Germany.  It  is  not  improbable  that 

41 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  apparently  approaching  era  of  international 
peace  incited  the  German  military  party  to 
undertake  the  subjugation  of  Europe  under  a 
universal  German  Empire  before  it  was  fully 
prepared  for  so  insane  an  attempt. 

Mr.  Albert  Smiley  selected  with  care  the 
guests  who  attended  these  conferences.  He  ap 
pointed  the  chairman  and,  in  consultation  with 
others  called  together  for  that  purpose,  selected 
the  Business  Committee,  and  he  always  attended 
the  morning  and  evening  meetings  of  the  Con 
ference.  The  afternoons  were  set  apart  for 
drives  and  walks  and  other  forms  of  recreation. 
On  both  the  Indian  and  the  Arbitration  Con 
ferences  there  were  radical  differences  of  opinion, 
perfect  freedom  of  expression,  often  warm,  and 
sometimes  hot,  debates;  but  I  do  not  think  that 
parliamentary  courtesy  was  ever  violated  or  that 
any  speaker  was  ever  called  to  order,  except  oc 
casionally  for  over-running  his  allotted  time. 
The  combination  of  freedom  and  courtesy  in  the 
speeches  at  these  conferences  must  have  struck 
any  one  accustomed  to  attend  meetings  for 
public  debate  whether  held  by  politicians,  ec 
clesiastics,  or  reformers.  That  this  was  largely 
due  to  the  personal  influence  of  our  host  I  am 
sure  we  all  felt,  though  he  rarely  took  any  ac 
tive  part  in  the  debates.  From  some  men  an 
indescribable  influence  exudes ;  other  men  as  vir- 

42 


THE  SMILEY  BROTHERS 

tuous  and  as  able  are  without  that  peculiar  in 
fluence.  I  can  no  more  understand  it  than  I 
can  understand  why  some  flowers  are  fragrant 
and  others  are  not.  Mr.  Smiley  was  a  born 
peacemaker,  making  peace  not  so  much  by  what 
he  said  as  by  what  he  was. 

I  attended  nearly  all  the  Indian  Conferences 
at  Lake  Mohonk  and  most  of  the  Arbitration 
Conferences,  and,  as  a  journalistic  historian  of 
current  events,  have  traced  their  subsequent 
influence  on  public  opinion  and  on  national  and 
international  action.  In  my  judgment,  the  world 
owes  much  more  than  it  knows  to  the  Smiley 
Brothers,  and  especially  to  Mr.  Albert  Smiley's 
skill  in  inspiring  and  directing  team  work.  Be 
fore  Mr.  Smiley  died  in  1912,  a  large  proportion 
of  the  Boards  of  Commerce  throughout  the 
United  States  had  sent  representatives  to  the 
International  Arbitration  Conference  and  had 
carried  back  to  their  various  communities  the 
plan  for  an  international  tribunal  proposed  by 
Mr.  Everett  Edward  Hale*  at  the  first  of  those 
conferences  and  adopted  by  the  Conference  with 
out  a  dissenting  voice.  The  growing  recognition 
in  this  country  of  the  duty  of  service  which  ad 
vanced  races  owe  to  dependent  races,  and  the 
growing  determination  in  this  country  to  find 

*In  the  silhouette  entitled  "Everett  Edward  Hale,  an  American  Abou  Ben  Adhem,"  the 
reader  will  find  further  information  respecting  his  proposal  and  advocacy  for  a  Supreme 
Court  of  the  Nations. 

43 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

in  law,  interpreted  by  an  international  tribunal, 
a  better  method  for  securing  international 
justice  than  can  be  found  in  an  army  equipped 
with  warlike  instruments,  found  at  Lake  Mo- 
honk  their  first  formal  and  forcible  expression 
and  there  received  their  first  equipment  of 
power. 


44 


JOHN   B.    GOUGH,   APOSTLE   OF   TEMPER 
ANCE 

IN  APRIL,  1840,  the  Rev.  Matthew  Hale 
Smith  delivered  a  temperance  lecture  in 
Baltimore.  Two  members  of  a  drinking 
club  which  was  accustomed  to  meet  in  a  tavern 
in  that  city  were  appointed,  probably  in  jest,  to 
attend  and  bring  back  a  report  to  their  comrades. 
On  their  report  a  hot  debate  ensued.  The  in 
terference  of  the  landlord  added  fuel  to  the 
flames.  As  a  result,  six  of  the  members  formed 
a  temperance  society  on  the  spot,  which  they 
entitled  the  Washington  Total  Abstinence 
Society.  A  year  or  two  later  John  B.  Gough, 
then  apparently  a  confirmed  inebriate,  was  by 
this  total-abstinence  movement  rescued  from 
self-destruction,  and  at  once  gave  himself  to  the 
rescue  of  others. 

He  was  born  in  1827  in  England,  of  humble 
parentage;  was  apprenticed  at  twelve  years  of 
age  to  a  family  migrating  to  America;  entered 
the  bookbinder's  trade;  took  to  the  stage  as  a 
vaudeville  performer;  fell  into  bad  habits,  in 
creased  by  despair  on  the  death  of  his  wife  and 
infant  child;  had  two  attacks  of  delirium  tre- 

45 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

mens;  by  a  kind  word  from  a  stranger  was  in 
terested  in  temperance  reform,  signed  the  pledge, 
and  began  his  real  life — the  life  of  an  apostle  of 
temperance.  He  brought  into  his  new  life  the 
arts  of  the  actor  acquired  in  the  theatre,  and  was 
at  once  a  favourite  speaker  in  the  temperance 
meetings  held  in  district  schoolhouses,  public 
halls,  and  sometimes,  although  at  first  rarely, 
in  churches. 

He  married  again.  His  wife  brought  him  those 
staying  and  steadying  qualities  which  this  impul 
sive,  ardent,  sensitive  orator  sorely  needed.  His 
newly  acquired  moral  earnestness  gave  to  him 
the  artistic  quality  of  sincerity  and  reality  which 
the  vaudeville  performer  had  not  possessed. 
He  united  with  the  Church  and  brought  into  the 
total-abstinence  movement  a  Christian  spirit 
which  at  first  it  had  lacked.  He  early  made 
enthusiastic  friends;  but  he  had  also  to 
encounter  bitter,  unscrupulous,  and  astute 
enemies.  They  concealed  their  enmity  under 
a  guise  of  hospitality.  Twice  he  fell  under  his 
old  temptations — once  a  physician's  prescription 
awoke  the  old  appetite,  once  he  was  drugged. 
From  both  falls  he  recovered,  and  by  both  falls 
his  hatred  of  drink  was  intensified,  his  power  to 
combat  it  was  strengthened. 

When  I  first  knew  him,  this  period  of  conflict 
was  wholly  in  the  past;  but  it  was  a  past  that 

46 


JOHN  B.  GOUGH 

he  never  forgot,  and  never  could  forget.  He  told 
me  once  that  he  never  came  into  a  roomful  of 
company  that  he  did  not  think,  "These  people 
are  saying  to  themselves,  Here  comes  the  man 
who  has  twice  had  delirium  tremens,"  and  that 
he  never  dared  take  communion  when  alcoholic 
wine  was  used  lest  the  fragrance  of  the  wine 
should  be  too  much  for  him. 

But  he  carried  with  him  none  of  the  marks  of 
his  upbringing;  no  vulgarities  and  no  coarseness 
of  speech,  no  lack  of  courtesy  in  behaviour.  He 
was  a  cultivated  gentleman,  able  to  grace  any 
social  circle,  and  the  best  social  circles  in  Eng 
land  and  America  were  opened  to  him.  He  was 
one  of  the  very  few  absolute  total  abstainers  I 
have  ever  known.  He  never  touched  wine  or 
pretended  to  touch  it  at  weddings  or  receptions; 
never  tasted  it  at  the  sacrament;  never  used  it 
as  a  medicine.  He  was  the  best  story-teller  I 
have  ever  known  and  told  stories  with  the  same 
dramatic  impersonation  at  the  dinner  table  as 
on  the  platform.  Of  them  he  had  an  inex 
haustible  supply,  because,  although  he  was 
always  drawing  from  his  reservoir,  he  was  also  al 
ways  replenishing  it.  The  Lecture  Lyceum 
was  in  a  decline;  Chautauqua  had  not  yet  been 
born;  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  was  still  in  its  youth.  But 
John  B.  Gough  never  failed  to  draw.  He  no 
longer  confined  himself  to  temperance,  but  I 

47 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

doubt  whether  he  ever  lectured  on  any  theme 
that  he  did  not  introduce  some  reference  to 
temperance  into  the  lecture.  On  one  of  my 
visits  to  him  at  his  country  home  a  few  miles  out 
from  Worcester  he  took  me  over  his  farm  and 
showed  me  half  a  score  or  more  of  cattle  of  a 
special  breed.  "Can  you  make  this  farm  pay?" 
I  asked  him.  "Pay!"  he  exclaimed.  "Pay! 
It  takes  eight  months  of  lecturing  as  hard  as  I 
can  lecture  to  earn  the  money  which  my  wife 
has  to  have  in  order  to  run  this  farm." 

He  was  a  consistent  Puritan.  If  I  did  not 
fear  being  misunderstood,  I  would  say  he  was  an 
Old  Testament  Christian.  He  was  for  himself 
a  very  strict  constructionist  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment  laws.  He  spent  eight  months  of  the  year 
on  an  itinerant  lecture  tour,  but  he  would  never 
travel  on  Sunday.  I  believe  he  would  never 
ride  in  a  horse  car  on  Sunday.  Does  not  the 
Fourth  Commandment  say:  "Thou  shalt  not 
do  any  work,  thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  daugh 
ter,  thy  manservant,  nor  thy  maidservant, 
nor  thy  cattle"?  To  ride  in  a  horse  car  is  to 
make  a  servant  and  a  horse  work;  therefore  he 
would  not  ride.  But,  unlike  some  Puritans,  he 
never  attempted  to  impose  his  conscience  on 
another.  He  was  strict  with  himself,  liberal 
with  others.  In  this  regard  he  was  unlike  many 
of  us  who  are  more  inclined  to  be  liberal  in 

48 


JOHN  B.  GOUGH 

judging  for  ourselves  and  strict  in  judging  for 
others. 

He  was  in  Edinburgh  one  Sunday  (he  him 
self  told  me  this  anecdote,  and  I  do  not  think  it 
has  been  before  in  print)  and  heard  Doctor  Finney 
preach  on  the  seventh  of  Romans:  "For  that 
which  I  do  I  allow  not;  for  what  I  would,  that 
do  I  not;  but  what  I  hate,  that  do  I."  The  ser 
mon  produced  a  profound  impression  on  Mr. 
Gough's  sensitive  nature.  The  next  morning  he 
called  on  Doctor  Finney  at  his  hotel,  was  shown 
to  his  room,  and,  with  characteristic  direct 
ness,  went  straight  to  his  point. 

"Doctor  Finney,"  said  he,  "I  am  Mr.  Gough. 
I  heard  you  preach  yesterday  morning;  and  I  am 
afraid  that  I  am  living  in  the  seventh  of  Ro 


mans." 


With  equally  characteristic  directness  Doctor 
Finney  met  his  visitor. 

"Let  us  pray,"  said  he;  and  knelt  down  at  his 
chair.  Mr.  Gough  knelt  also.  After  a  fervent 
prayer  for  his  visitor's  emancipation  from  the 
law  Doctor  Finney  called  on  Mr.  Gough  to 
pray. 

Mr.  Gough.     I  can't,  Doctor  Finney. 

Dr.  Finney.     Pray,  Mr.  Gough. 

Mr.  Gough.     I  can't,  Doctor  Finney. 

Dr.  Finney  (with  renewed  emphasis).  Pray, 
Mr.  Gough. 

49 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

Mr.  Gough.  I  can't,  Doctor  Finney;  and, 
what  is  more,  I  won't. 

Dr.  Finney.  O  Lord,  have  mercy  on  this 
wiry  little  sinner. 

What  was  said  in  the  conversation  that  fol 
lowed  I  do  not  know.  The  incident  is  worth  re 
cording  because  it  illustrates  one  distinguishing 
feature  in  Mr.  Gough's  character — his  absolute 
sincerity.  When  he  said,  "I  cannot  pray,"  he 
spoke  the  literal  truth.  A  sincerer  man  than 
he  I  have  never  known.  He  was  incapable 
of  pretense.  The  emotion  that  he  did  not 
feel  he  could  not  utter.  This  was  one  element, 
perhaps  the  most  important  element  of  his  power 
as  an  orator.  Because  what  he  said  he  always 
himself  felt,  he  compelled  his  audience  to  feel  it 
with  him.  He  was  always  real.  Even  in  his 
impersonations  he  was  for  the  moment  the  in 
dividual  he  impersonated. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing  the  tem 
perance  army  existed  in  two  wings — the  legal 
and  the  moral  suasion.  The  leaders  of  the  one 
sought  by  law  to  prohibit  the  sale  of  liquor; 
the  leaders  of  the  other  sought  to  dissuade  the 
drinker  from  continuing  to  use  it.  Mr.  Gough 
belonged  to  the  latter  wing.  He  was  essentially 
a  Christian  evangelist.  He  characterized  the 
temperance  movement  as  a  "Christian  enter 
prise";  he  sought,  and  not  in  vain,  the  coopera- 

50 


JOHN  B.  GOUGH 

tion  of  the  Christian  clergy  and  the  Christian 
churches;  he  appealed  to  the  sleeping  pride  in 
man,  which  the  most  degraded  rarely  entirely 
lose,  and  he  often  roused  it  to  self-assertion.  At 
the  close  of  one  of  his  meetings  the  most 
notorious  drunkard  in  the  town  arose  and, 
pulling  a  bottle  out  of  his  pocket,  said:  "Mr. 
Gough,  those  young  men  in  the  gallery  gave  me 
this  bottle  and  offered  me  half  a  dollar  to  drink 
your  very  good  health  at  the  close  of  your 
lecture.  But  you  have  told  me  that  I  am  a 
man,  and  I  believe  I  am";  and  he  broke  the 
bottle  in  pieces  then  and  there,  signed  the  pledge 
—and  kept  it. 

If  Mr.  Gough  treated  the  "drunken  Jakes" 
in  every  community  as  men,  he  also  treated 
genteel  and  reputable  drunkenness  as  a  sin.  He 
condemned  it,  not  because  it  always  leads  to 
poverty,  disease,  and  crime,  for  it  does  not;  but 
because  it  always  does  lead  to  a  loss  of  self- 
control;  and  if  self-control  is  not  the  foundation 
of  all  the  virtues,  no  virtue  can  be  exercised 
without  it.  I  wrote  to  him  once  inviting  him 
to  deliver  an  address  at  a  Congregational  Club 
in  New  York  City,  and  received  the  following 
reply: 

I  am  glad  that  the  subject  of  Temperance  is  to  be  the 
topic  of  discussion  and  I  would  have  gladly  occupied  a  few 
minutes  in  the  expression  of  some  thoughts  on  the  subject 

51 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPOB  ARIES 

before  such  an  audience.  I  fear  we  do  not  sufficiently 
recognize  the  importance  of  a  more  strict  definition  of  the 
meaning  of  the  term  drunkenness  or  intemperance.  We 
are  apt  to  decide  that  drunkards  are  those  only  who  beat 
their  wives,  neglect  their  children,  and  outrage  the  de 
cencies  of  life;  who  love  filth  and  are  wedded  to  all  abomi 
nations,  moral  and  physical.  Are  there  not  men  and 
women  who  are  able  to  maintain  a  decent  or  respectable 
appearance,  who  are  really  drunkards  as  essentially  as  the 
poor  victim  who  rolls  in  the  gutter?  Only  differing  in  de 
gree.  A  man  who  prays  louder  or  with  more  apparent 
unction  under  the  influence  of  intoxicating  stimulants  is 
as  drunk  as  the  man  who  blasphemes  under  the  same  in 
fluence,  or  he  who  slobbers  in  his  silly  maudlin  affection 
as  he  who  beats  his  wife,  &c. 

These  two  incidents  illustrate  the  spirit  that 
always  animated  Mr.  Gough.  His  primary 
object  was  the  redemption  of  the  individual; 
the  social  betterment  of  the  community  took  a 
second  place  in  his  customary  thinking.  But 
though  he  rarely  spoke  in  advocacy  of  legal 
measures  of  any  kind — high  license,  local  option, 
or  prohibition — he  was  too  good  a  strategist  to 
criticize  his  co-workers  in  a  common  enterprise. 
The  prohibitionists  were  not  always  as  wise. 
With  that  intolerance  that  has  too  often  char 
acterized  radical  reformers  from  the  days  of  the 
ancient  Pharisees,  some  of  them  sneered  and  a 
few  of  them  bitterly  condemned  the  moral-sua- 
sionists.  This  led  to  one  of  the  most  dramatic 
incidents  in  Mr.  Gough's  dramatic  career. 

52 


JOHN  B.  GOUGH 

In  1857 — I  believe  I  have  the  date  right-— 
Neal  Dow,  the  author  of  the  Maine  Law,  was 
about  visiting  England  to  take  part  in  a  pro 
hibition  campaign  in  that  country.  At  that 
time  the  prohibition  movement  in  the  United 
States  was  suffering  a  relapse.  Mr.  Gough  in 
a  private  letter  to  a  friend  stated  the  facts. 
"The  cause  in  this  country,"  he  wrote,  "is  in 
a  depressed  state.  The  Maine  Law  is  a  dead 
letter  everywhere — more  liquor  sold  than  I  ever 
knew  before  in  Massachusetts — and  in  the  other 
states  it  is  about  as  bad."  At  the  same  time 
he  commended  Neal  Dow  and  referred  to  him 
for  further  information.  "I  see,"  he  said,  "that 
Neal  Dow  is  to  be  in  England.  I  am  glad.  You 
will  all  like  him;  he  is  a  noble  man,  a  faithful 
worker.  He  can  tell  better  than  any  other  man 
the  state  of  the  Maine  Law  movement  here." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Gough's  statement 
was  true.  But  the  radical  reformer  does  not 
wish  the  truth  told  if  it  will  hurt  his  cause.  He 
is  generally  quite  sure  that  nothing  can  be  true 
which  will  hurt  his  cause.  When  a  little  later 
Mr.  Gough  landed  in  Liverpool,  he  found  the 
prohibition  circles  in  England  in  a  fever  of  ex 
citement  which  the  publication  of  this  private 
letter  had  caused.  That  he  was  a  liar  was  the 
least  of  the  charges  preferred  against  him.  Mr. 
Gough  met  the  charges  of  falsehood  by  letters 

53 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

from  distinguished  advocates  of  temperance  in 
the  United  States  testifying  to  the  facts  as  he 
had  portrayed  them.  Resolutions  by  his  friends 
which  fully  and  heartily  vindicated  him  had  no 
effect  to  still  the  abuse.  The  reverse  was  the 
effect.  Slanders,  at  first  whispered  from  circle 
to  circle,  were  at  length  openly  published.  One 
prohibition  leader,  bolder  or  more  unscrupulous 
than  his  colleagues,  printed  a  letter  in  which  he 
declared  that  Mr.  Gough  had  been  often  intoxi 
cated  with  drugs — once  insensibly  so — in  the 
streets  of  London,  many  times  helplessly  so  in 
the  streets  of  Glasgow;  that  there  were  many 
witnesses  to  the  facts ;  that  two  of  these  occasions 
were  within  the  writer's  personal  knowledge; 
and  he  challenged  Mr.  Gough  to  bring  the  matter 
before  a  jury  of  twelve  Englishmen  and  pledged 
himself  "on  the  honour  of  a  gentleman  and  the 
faith  of  a  Christian  to  furnish  names  and  adduce 
further  evidence  of  what  I  have  now  asserted." 

Mr.  Gough  accepted  the  challenge  of  Doctor 
Lees,  sued  him  for  libel,  and  brought  him  before 
the  court  to  make  good  his  charge. 

I  should  not  venture  thus  to  report  this  in 
cident  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Gough  if  I  depended 
solely  on  my  memory  of  events  occurring  more 
than  sixty  years  ago.  But  I  wrote  in  1884  a 
brief  sketch  of  Mr.  Gough's  life  which  is  now  out 
of  print.  A  copy  of  that  sketch  lies  before  me 

54 


JOHN  B.  GOUGH 

now,  and  from  it  I  quote  the  following  brief  re 
port  of  this  extraordinary  trial: 

Mr.  Gough's  counsel  opened  the  case,  stated 
the  facts,  and  called  Mr.  Gough  to  go  into  the 
witness-box.  Mr.  Gough  thus  at  the  outset 
offered  himself  to  the  opposing  counsel  for  a 
searching  cross-examination  into  his  whole  life. 
It  was  a  simple  thing  to  do  if  the  charges  were 
wholly  false;  it  would  have  been  a  disastrous 
thing  to  do  if  there  had  been  any  colour  of  truth 
in  them,  any  ground  even  for  a  reasonable  sus 
picion  of  their  truth.  Mr.  Gough  carried  with 
him  into  the  witness-box  a  little  handbag.  He 
swore  positively  that  since  1845  never  had 
wine,  spirits,  or  any  fermented  liquor  touched 
his  lips;  that  he  had  never  eaten  opium,  bought 
opium,  possessed  opium;  that  he  had  never 
touched  or  owned  laudanum  except  on  that  one 
occasion  before  his  reformation,  when  he  stopped 
on  the  edge  of  suicide;  that  the  whole  story  in  all 
its  parts  was  an  absolute  fabrication.  .  .  .  Then, 
in  answer  to  a  question  from  his  counsel,  he 
opened  his  hand-bag  and  took  out  a  little  memo 
randum  book.  It  was  one  of  several.  It  then 
appeared  that  ever  since  the  commencement  of 
his  lecturing  experiences  he  had  kept  a  diary. 
In  this  diary  he  entered  upon  every  day  the  place 
where  he  spent  it,  the  persons  with  whom  he 
spent  it,  his  occupation,  and,  if  he  had  lectured, 

55 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

from  distinguished  advocates  of  temperance  in 
the  United  States  testifying  to  the  facts  as  he 
had  portrayed  them.  Resolutions  by  his  friends 
which  fully  and  heartily  vindicated  him  had  no 
effect  to  still  the  abuse.  The  reverse  was  the 
effect.  Slanders,  at  first  whispered  from  circle 
to  circle,  were  at  length  openly  published.  One 
prohibition  leader,  bolder  or  more  unscrupulous 
than  his  colleagues,  printed  a  letter  in  which  he 
declared  that  Mr.  Gough  had  been  often  intoxi 
cated  with  drugs — once  insensibly  so — in  the 
streets  of  London,  many  times  helplessly  so  in 
the  streets  of  Glasgow;  that  there  were  many 
witnesses  to  the  facts;  that  two  of  these  occasions 
were  within  the  writer's  personal  knowledge; 
and  he  challenged  Mr.  Gough  to  bring  the  matter 
before  a  jury  of  twelve  Englishmen  and  pledged 
himself  "on  the  honour  of  a  gentleman  and  the 
faith  of  a  Christian  to  furnish  names  and  adduce 
further  evidence  of  what  I  have  now  asserted." 

Mr.  Gough  accepted  the  challenge  of  Doctor 
Lees,  sued  him  for  libel,  and  brought  him  before 
the  court  to  make  good  his  charge. 

I  should  not  venture  thus  to  report  this  in 
cident  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Gough  if  I  depended 
solely  on  my  memory  of  events  occurring  more 
than  sixty  years  ago.  But  I  wrote  in  1884  a 
brief  sketch  of  Mr.  Gough's  life  which  is  now  out 
of  print.  A  copy  of  that  sketch  lies  before  me 

54 


JOHN  B.  GOUGH 

now,  and  from  it  I  quote  the  following  brief  re 
port  of  this  extraordinary  trial: 

Mr.  Gough's  counsel  opened  the  case,  stated 
the  facts,  and  called  Mr.  Gough  to  go  into  the 
witness-box.  Mr.  Gough  thus  at  the  outset 
offered  himself  to  the  opposing  counsel  for  a 
searching  cross-examination  into  his  whole  life. 
It  was  a  simple  thing  to  do  if  the  charges  were 
wholly  false;  it  would  have  been  a  disastrous 
thing  to  do  if  there  had  been  any  colour  of  truth 
in  them,  any  ground  even  for  a  reasonable  sus 
picion  of  their  truth.  Mr.  Gough  carried  with 
him  into  the  witness-box  a  little  handbag.  He 
swore  positively  that  since  1845  never  had 
wine,  spirits,  or  any  fermented  liquor  touched 
his  lips;  that  he  had  never  eaten  opium,  bought 
opium,  possessed  opium;  that  he  had  never 
touched  or  owned  laudanum  except  on  that  one 
occasion  before  his  reformation,  when  he  stopped 
on  the  edge  of  suicide;  that  the  whole  story  in  all 
its  parts  was  an  absolute  fabrication.  .  .  .  Then, 
in  answer  to  a  question  from,  his  counsel,  he 
opened  his  hand-bag  and  took  out  a  little  memo 
randum  book.  It  was  one  of  several.  It  then 
appeared  that  ever  since  the  commencement  of 
his  lecturing  experiences  he  had  kept  a  diary. 
In  this  diary  he  entered  upon  every  day  the  place 
where  he  spent  it,  the  persons  with  whom  he 
spent  it,  his  occupation,  and,  if  he  had  lectured, 

55 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  price  received  for  his  lecture.  He  was  thus 
able  to  fix  with  certainty  his  exact  place  and 
the  witnesses  who  could  testify  to  his  condition 
on  every  day.  Slander  was  dumb.  It  dared 
not  face  that  diary.  A  hurried  consultation  took 
place  between  Doctor  Lees  and  his  counsel. 
Then,  in  Doctor  Lees's  name,  and  in  his  pres 
ence,  his  counsel  retracted  the  charges.  He 
retracted  the  statement  that  his  client  knew  of 
his  own  certain  knowledge  of  Mr.  Gough's  in 
toxication.  Everything  was  withdrawn.  Mr. 
Gough  left  the  witness-stand  without  even  being 
cross-examined.  By  consent  a  verdict  was  given 
to  him  of  five  guineas,  a  sum  sufficient  to  carry 
costs. 

The  subsequent  endeavours  of  Doctor  Lees  to 
retract  his  retraction  had  no  effect  upon  public 
opinion.  The  verdict  of  the  English  people 
unanimously  sustained  the  unanimous  verdict 
of  the  English  jury.  What  I  wrote  in  1884  is 
still  true:  "From  that  day  to  this  slander 
against  his  [Mr.  Gough's]  good  name  has  never 
been  repeated.  Neither  envy,  nor  malice,  nor 
even  partisanship,  dares  face  that  diary." 

No  influence  is  so  difficult  to  retain  as  that  of 
the  popular  orator.  Curiosity  listens  to  him 
at  first  with  enthusiasm:  but  repeated  hearings 
satisfy  curiosity,  and  enthusiasm  gives  place  to 
a  languid  interest.  This  makes  the  position  of 

56 


JOHN  B.  GOUGH 

the  preacher  so  difficult,  and  the  tenure  of  the 
pastorate  so  brief;  this  makes  the  blunder  so 
serious  of  any  preacher  who  allows  himself  to 
depend  on  his  oratory  for  his  permanent  power 
over  his  people.  If  the  popular  orator  defies 
public  sentiment,  it  either  overwhelms  him  or 
flows  away  and  leaves  him  without  an  auditor. 
If  he  flatters  the  public,  every  new  flattery  must 
surpass  its  predecessor,  till  by  and  by  flattery 
dies  of  its  own  extravagance.  Mr.  Gough  not 
only  achieved  a  preeminence  among  the  orators 
of  America  and  England,  and  this  without  ad 
vantages  of  either  birth  or  culture,  but  he  re 
tained  that  position  during  nearly  half  a  century, 
in  spite  of  changes  of  public  thought  and  feeling 
respecting  his  chosen  theme  which  would  have 
rendered  the  speech-making  of  any  ordinary  man 
upon  the  platform  in  1840  an  anachronism  be 
fore  1886. 

The  closing  years  of  Mr.  Gough's  life  were 
spent  in  his  rural  home  a  few  miles  from  Wor 
cester,  Massachusetts .  Without  education  he  be 
came  a  master  of  the  English  language;  without 
advantages  of  birth  or  early  training  he  became 
a  refined  and  cultivated  gentleman;  rescued  from 
the  depths  of  degradation  by  a  kind  word  fitly 
spoken,  he  became  a  devout  Christian.  He  was 
a  great  orator  because  he  was  in  the  best  sense 
of  that  often-abused  term,  a  great  man.  En- 

57 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

dowed  with  a  musical  voice,  a  mobile  face,  a 
vivid  imagination,  a  human  sympathy  equally 
capable  of  irresistible  pathos  and  of  an  almost 
rollicking  humour,  all  controlled  and  directed  to 
a  noble  end  by  common  sense  and  a  masterful 
conscience,  Mr.  Gough  rendered  to  his  native 
land  and  to  the  land  of  his  adoption  a  service  the 
effects  of  which  surpass  all  calculation. 

And  when  he  died  men  came  from  various 
parts  of  this  country,  and  messages  from  all  parts 
of  the  civilized  world,  to  do  honour  to  his  memory 
at  the  simple  funeral  services  held  in  his  country 
home  near  Worcester,  Massachusetts. 


58 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER,  TEACHER 

HENRY  F.  DURANT,a  successful  lawyer 
in  Massachusetts,  was  converted  under 
the  preaching  of  Dwight  L.  Moody  in 
1864,  became  himself  a  lay  preacher,  eleven 
years  later  set  apart  a  large  portion  of  his  very 
considerable  fortune  to  the  foundation  of  a  col 
lege  for  girls  at  Wellesley,  a  suburb  of  Boston, 
and  thereafter  devoted  to  the  organization  and 
management  of  the  college  most  of  his  time  and 
his  thought  until  his  death  in  1881.  The  college 
building  was  erected  on  an  eminence  above  a 
lake,  on  the  opposite  shore  of  which  was  Mr. 
Durant's  home.  The  ample  college  grounds, 
beautifully  diversified,  included  three  hundred 
acres — one,  he  once  told  me,  for  each  pupil.  When 
I  first  visited  Wellesley  College,  probably  in 
1879,  Mr.  Durant  was  spending  much  of  his  time 
in  the  college,  exercising  a  controlling  influence 
in  the  conduct  of  its  affairs,  and  Miss  Alice 
Freeman  was  teaching  history  and,  if  my 
memory  does  not  mislead  me,  was  also  busy 
creating  a  library  out  of  a  growing  collection  of 
books. 

From  the  first  she  fascinated  me.     Whether  a 

59 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

sculptor  would  consider  her  features  beautiful 
I  do  not  know.  Beauty  of  features  has  never 
much  appealed  to  me.  But  through  her  always- 
expressive  face  shone  a  beautiful  spirit.  Native 
refinement,  scholarly  culture,  intuitive  imagi 
nation,  unhesitating  courage,  womanly  grace 
and  spontaneity  of  life  combined  to  make  that 
beauty.  Profoundly  interested  in  the  move 
ment  to  widen  the  intellectual  horizon  of  woman 
and  open  to  her  the  long-locked  doors  of  op 
portunity  to  public  service,  she  was  then  and 
always  feminine.  This,  my  first  impression,  I 
want  to  impress  upon  my  reader,  because,  if  I 
fail  to  do  so,  I  shall  lamentably  fail  to  interpret 
the  subject  of  this  portrait.  If  I  am  asked  what 
I  mean  by  "feminine,"  I  reply  frankly  that  I  do 
not  know.  No  man  can  define  "feminine."  For 
to  man  the  charm  of  woman  is  that  she  keeps  him 
guessing.  For  this  reason  novelists  fail  in  their 
heroines.  The  masculine  reader  of  "David  Cop- 
perfield"  approves  of  Agnes,  though  she  rather 
bores  him,  but  delights  in  Dora,  though  he  dis 
approves  her.  On  the  other  hand,  Portia  in  "The 
Merchant  of  Venice"  is  a  delightful  heroine  to 
the  masculine  mind  because  the  Portia  of  the 
casket  scene  is  so  different  from  the  Portia  of 
the  judgment  scene.  Alice  Freeman  Palmer 
seemed  to  me,  I  think  from  that  first  intro 
duction  to  her,  like  an  opal;  you  can  always  be 

60 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

sure  to  find  a  wonderful  light  in  it,  but  with  what 
changing  colours  it  will  glow  when  you  next  look 
at  it  you  cannot  tell;  no  one  can  tell. 

I  think  it  was  because  she  was  so  feminine 
that  she  exercised  over  Mr.  Durant  an  influence 
which  no  one  else  exercised  and  no  one  else  could 
quite  comprehend.  This  influence  inspired  him 
to  select  her,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six,  to  be 
president  of  the  college.  He  was  a  Puritan 
Christian.  Prompt  obedience  to  law  was  to 
him  the  sum  of  all  virtues.  One  day  as  he  and 
Miss  Freeman  were  consulting  together  on 
some  college  business,  a  college  girl  passed  by 
the  open  door.  The  following  colloquy  took 
place. 

Mr.  Durant.  Miss  Freeman,  I  wish  you  would 
speak  to  that  girl  about  her  soul's  salvation. 
She  is  in  need  of  such  counsel  as  you  could  give 
her. 

Miss  Freeman.  I  will  make  it  my  business 
to  get  acquainted  with  her.  What  is  her  name? 

Mr.  Durant.  No!  No!  I  want  you  to  speak 
to  her  now.  She  has  just  passed  by. 

Miss  Freeman.  I  can't  do  that.  I  can't 
talk  on  this  most  sacred  of  subjects  with  a  girl 
I  have  never  known. 

Mr.  Durant.  Yes!  Now!  Now  is  the  ac 
cepted  time,  now  is  the  day  of  salvation. 

Miss  Freeman  (after  a  little  longer  parley). 

61 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

Why,  Mr  Durant,  it  is  impossible.  You  don't 
know  anything  about  girls. 

Mr.  Durant.  I  don't  know  anything  about 
girls!  Why,  I  have  founded  this  college  for 
girls;  and  I  have  been  meeting  them  every  week, 
almost  every  day,  for  the  last  three  years.  Why 
don't  I  know  anything  about  girls? 

Miss  Freeman.  Because  you  have  never  had 
a  daughter;  your  wife  is  not  like  any  other 
woman  that  ever  lived;  and  you've  never  been 
a  girl  yourself. 

Mrs.  Palmer,  who  told  me  this  incident,  which 
I  have  here  for  brevity's  sake  put  in  dramatic 
form,  added  that  often  afterward  when  in  their 
conferences  she  could  not  agree  with  him,  he 
would  bring  the  conference  to  a  close  by  saying : 
"Well,  I  suppose  I  don't  understand  girls;  I've 
never  been  a  girl  myself." 

This  combination  of  courage,  grace,  and  tact 
is  strikingly  illustrated  by  a  subsequent  in 
cident  when  she  had  become  the  president  of  the 
college. 

Monday  was  the  college  holiday.  Every 
Monday  morning  some  seventy  or  eighty  college 
girls  went  to  Boston  on  the  Boston  and  Albany 
Railroad.  As  no  extra  provision  on  the  rail 
road  was  made  for  this  weekly  exodus,  the  girls 
generally  had  to  stand.  Miss  Freeman  first 
called  the  attention  of  the  station-master  to  the 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

need  of  better  accommodations;  then  she  wrote 
to  headquarters;  then,  getting  no  improvement, 
she  wrote  again;  and  then  the  impatient  girls 
took  the  matter  into  their  own  hands.  One 
Monday  morning  the  usual  eighty  girls  were  at 
the  station  to  take  the  train.  One  of  their  num 
ber,  more  courageous  than  her  companions,  col 
lected  all  their  tickets  from  them;  they  all  poured 
into  one  car  and  took  their  customary  places  in 
the  aisle.  The  car  door  opened.  "Tickets, 
please!"  said  the  conductor.  The  leader  at  the 
head  of  the  long  line  of  swaying  girls  replied, 
"I  have  the  tickets  for  our  whole  party,  and 
will  give  them  up  as  soon  as  you  provide  us  with 
seats."  The  conductor  took  in  the  situation  at 
a  glance.  He  could  not  stop  the  train  and  bun 
dle  eighty  girls  out  on  the  side  of  the  track. 
"Give  me  your  name,  please,  miss,"  said  he. 
"Certainly,"  she  replied,  and  handed  him  her 
card.  But  when  she  got  back  to  the  college 
she  began  to  fear  the  consequences  of  her  act 
and  went  directly  to  the  president  for  counsel. 
"Then  I  knew,"  said  Miss  Freeman,  in  telling 
the  story  to  me,  "that  my  time  had  come." 
"If  you  hear  from  the  railway,"  she  said  to  the 
girl,  "report  to  me."  The  next  day  the  girl 
brought  her  a  letter  from  the  superintendent 
calling  upon  her  to  deliver  the  railway  tickets. 
This  she  reported  at  once  to  the  president, 

63 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

who  took  the  letter.  The  next  day  a  second 
letter  was  received;  it  was  severer  than  the  first 
and  threatened  to  report  her  to  the  president. 
That  also  she  reported  to  the  president.  The 
president  reassured  her.  "Don't  worry,"  she 
said.  "You  have  already  reported  the  case 
to  the  president;  give  me  the  letter."  The 
third  day  Miss  Freeman,  going  in  to  Boston, 
called  on  the  superintendent;  but  not  to  apolo 
gize — to  complain.  "Wellesley  College,"  she 
said,  "asks  no  favours  of  the  railway.  But  you 
have  been  twice  informed  that  every  Monday 
some  seventy  or  eighty  girls  go  in  to  Boston 
from  Wellesley;  they  pay  for  seats  and  are  en 
titled  to  seats,  and  no  seats  are  provided  for 
them."  The  superintendent  apologized,  and 
promised  that  in  the  future  the  seats  should  be 
provided.  She  rose  to  go.  The  superintendent 
begged  to  detain  her  a  moment.  Somewhat 
shamefacedly  he  narrated  the  incident  and  said 
he  had  no  doubt  that  if  she  would  ask  the  girls 
for  the  tickets  which  they  possessed  the  girls 
would  deliver  them.  Miss  Freeman  replied 
that  the  president  of  Wellesley  College  was  not 
acting  as  collecting  agent  for  the  Boston  and 
Albany  Railroad  and  referred  him  for  his  claim 
against  the  college  or  its  students  to  the  legal 
adviser  of  the  college  whose  address  she  gave 
him.  Thereafter  there  was  always  accommo- 

64 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

dation  on  Monday's  train.  The  girls  got  their 
seats:  the  railroad  never  got  the  tickets.  What 
sort  of  standing  this  incident  gave  to  the  presi 
dent  with  the  students  the  reader  can  better 
imagine  than  I  can  describe. 

Another  incident,  not  less  significant  of  the 
power  of  her  personality,  can  be  told  in  a  few 
sentences.  There  had  been  some  stealing  in 
the  college.  Circumstances  convinced  the  presi 
dent  that  some  one  of  the  students  was  guilty, 
but  did  not  point  to  any  one.  Her  indignation, 
hot  but  controlled,  coupled  with  the  fellowship 
with  the  students  which  made  them  all  recognize 
her  as  their  best  friend,  enabled  her  so  to  speak 
in  chapel  one  morning — how.  I  wish  I  could  have 
heard  that  chapel  talk! — that  the  culprit  came 
straight  to  her  with  a  full  confession.  I  do  not 
recall  that  I  ever  heard  of  another  sermon  so 
immediately  and  personally  effective. 

I  do  not  think  that  I  am  mistaken  in  the  opin 
ion  that  Mr.  Durant  was  more  eager  to  make 
missionary  Christians  than  to  make  ripe  scholars. 
The  incident  already  narrated  illustrates  his 
spiritual  eagerness.  Miss  Freeman  (I  use 
the  name  she  bore  during  those  college  days) 
was  not  less  spiritually  eager.  But  she  did  not 
think  that  Christian  character  and  ripe  scholar 
ship  were  separate  goals  to  be  reached  by  sepa 
rate  roads,  or  that  either  was  to  be  used  merely 

65 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

as  a  means  to  attain  the  other.  She  habitually 
thought  of  the  Christian  religion  in  New-Testa 
ment  terms  as  "life";  to  inspire  her  pupils  with 
life  was  always  her  inspiring  purpose.  Pro 
fessor  Palmer  in  his  delightful  biography  of  his 
wife  brings  out  this  characteristic  very  clearly: 

"Why  will  you,"  I  said,  "give  all  this  time  to  speaking 
before  uninstructed  audiences,  to  discussions  in  endless 
committees  with  people  too  dull  to  know  whether  they 
are  talking  to  the  point,  and  to  anxious  interviews  with 
tired  and  tiresome  women?  You  would  exhaust  yourself 
less  in  writing  books  of  lasting  consequence.  At  present, 
you  are  building  no  monument.  When  you  are  gone  peo 
ple  will  ask  who  you  were,  and  nobody  will  be  able  to  say." 
But  I  always  received  the  same  indifferent  answer: 
"Well,  why  should  they  say?  I  am  trying  to  make  girls 
wiser  and  happier.  Books  don't  help  much  toward  that. 
They  are  entertaining  enough,  but  really  dead  things. 
Why  should  I  make  more  of  them?  It  is  people  that 
count.  You  want  to  put  yourself  into  people;  they  touch 
other  people;  these,  others  still;  and  so  you  go  on  working 
forever." 

"It  is  people  that  count."  That  I  think  is 
one  of  the  keys  to  Alice  Freeman  Palmer's 
character.  She  was  not  especially  interested 
in  themes  or  theories;  but  she  was  tremendously 
interested  in  people.  I  was  once  told  by  a  friend 
of  a  young  graduate  who  had  just  taken  up 
teaching,  and  who,  asked  by  a  companion,  what 
she  was  teaching,  replied,  "Twenty  children." 

66 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

When  I  first  knew  her,  Miss  Freeman  was  teach 
ing  three  hundred  college  girls.  They  absorbed 
all  her  attention.  She  had  especially  prepared 
herself  to  teach  history.  But  my  guess  is  that 
she  could  have  given  points  to  any  teacher  in  her 
faculty.  She  probably  did  not  know  mathe 
matics  as  well  as  the  professor  of  mathematics,  or 
philosophy  as  well  as  the  professor  of  philosophy, 
or  Greek  as  well  as  the  professor  of  Greek,  but 
she  knew  girls,  and  she  could  have  shown  any 
specialist  in  her  faculty  how  to  get  the  girl's 
mind  open  to  any  truth  the  specialist  wanted  to 
get  into  that  mind. 

There  lies  before  me  an  address  of  hers  en 
titled  "Why  Go  to  College?"*  There  is  nothing 
in  the  publication  to  indicate  when  and  where 
it  was  published,  but  it  furnishes  a  singularly 
lucid  interpretation  of  the  ideal  of  education 
which,  though  possibly  unformulated,  directed 
and  controlled  all  her  educational  work  from  my 
first  acquaintance  with  her.  Something  of  that 
ideal  the  reader  may  perhaps  catch  from  a 
paragraphal  abstract. 

Preeminently  the  college  [is  a  place  of  edu 
cation,  and  a  good  education  emancipates  the 
mind  and  makes  us  citizens  of  the  world.  No 
student  who  fails  to  get  a  little  knowledge  on 

*"The  Teacher:  Essays  and  Addresses  on  Education,"  by  George  Herbert  Palmer  and 
Alice  Freeman  Palmer. 

67 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

many  subjects  and  much  knowledge  on  some 
can  be  said  to  have  succeeded.  The  college  is 
a  place  of  happiness.  "Merely  for  good  times, 
for  romance,  for  society,  college  life  offers  un 
equalled  opportunities."  She  quotes  Words 
worth,  "We  live  by  admiration,  hope,  and  love," 
and  adds  "The  college  abounds  in  all  three.  .  .  . 
Books,  pictures,  collections,  appliances  in  every 
field,  learned  teachers,  mirthful  friends,  ath 
letics  for  holidays,  the  best  words  of  the  best 
men  for  holy  days — all  are  here."  The  college 
is  a  place  for  gain  in  health.  "The  steady,  long- 
continued  routine  of  mental  work,  physical  ex 
ercise,  recreation,  and  sleep,  the  simple  and 
healthful  food  in  place  of  irregular  and  un 
studied  diet,  work  out  salvation  for  her." 
The  college  is  a  place  of  broadening  influence. 
The  girl  "goes  to  college  with  the  entire  con 
viction,  half  unknown  to  herself,  that  her 
father's  political  party  contains  all  the  honest 
men,  her  mother's  social  circle  all  the  true  ladies, 
her  church  all  the  real  saints  of  the  commun 
ity.  .  .  .  Before  her  diploma  is  won  she 
realizes  how  much  wider  a  world  she  lives  in  than 
she  ever  dreamed  of  at  home.  The  wealth  that 
lies  in  differences  has  dawned  upon  her  vision." 
In  college  we  make  broadening  and  inspiring 
friendships,  and  through  them  obtain  new  and 
more  catholic,  more  generous  ideals.  "The 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

greatest  thing  any  friend  or  teacher  either  in 
school  or  college  can  do  for  a  student  is  to  fur 
nish  him  with  a  personal  ideal." 

This  Miss  Freeman  was  doing  during  the  six 
years  of  her  college  presidency.  I  was  startled 
to  read  in  her  husband's  biography  of  her  that 
only  for  six  years  did  she  fill  that  position;  and 
now  looking  back  upon  that  period  I  am  still 
filled  with  wonder  that  her  never-failing  foun 
tain  of  life  could  have  accomplished  so  much  in 
so  brief  a  time.  For  it  is  not  only  Wellesley 
College  that  still  feels  her  influence.  What 
she  said  to  her  husband  still  proves  true:  "You 
put  yourself  into  people;  they  touch  other  peo 
ple;  these,  others  still;  and  so  you  go  on  working 
forever." 

My  first  college  sermon  was  preached  at  Vassar 
College  probably  about  1878.  Arriving  there 
Friday  night  or  Saturday  morning  I  had  an 
opportunity  for  a  conference  with  one  or  more 
of  the  teachers  and  learned  that  there  was  in  the 
student  body  a  great  deal  of  religious  question 
ing:  their  traditional  faith  had  been  shaken,  a  new 
faith  had  not  come  to  take  its  place.  So  I  took 
for  my  theme:  "The  foundations  of  faith"  which 
I  found  to  be  in  man's  spiritual  nature:  the 
Bible  and  the  Christ  were  authoritative  because 
they  interpreted  man  to  himself.  From  Vassar 
I  went  to  Wellesley.  Mr.  Durant  was,  if  not 

69 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

its  president,  its  controlling  spirit.  The  teachers 
I  talked  with  thought  there  was  little  or  no 
skepticism  in  the  student  body,  that  the  college 
was  Evangelical  from  centre  to  circumference. 
The  college  was  making  much  of  a  daily  course 
of  Bible  study.  Sol  took  for  my  theme:  "What 
is  the  Bible  and  how  shall  we  study  it?"  In  the 
evening,  with  the  cordial  approval  of  the  college 
authorities,  I  held  a  "Question  Drawer."  The 
girls  were  invited  to  send  to  my  room  any  re 
ligious  questions  on  which  they  desired  light  for 
themselves  or  for  a  comrade.  They  were  not  to 
sign  their  name,  and  as  no  one  but  myself  would 
see  the  questions  and  the  handwriting  would 
mean  nothing  to  me,  the  secrecy  of  the  con 
fessional  would  characterize  the  meeting.  The 
questions  surprised  the  teachers  as  much  as  they 
surprised  me:  they  covered  the  whole  field  of 
lay  thinking  from  "What  are  the  six  days  of 
creation?"  to  "Why  should  we  believe  in  God?" 
In  1881  Mr.  Durant  died  and  Miss  Alice  Free 
man  became  the  president  of  the  college.  By 
the  end  of  the  first  year  of  her  administration  she 
had  cleared  its  atmosphere.  Doubtings  were  no 
longer  discouraged.  Spring  had  followed  winter. 
The  eager  quest  for  truth  had  taken  the  place  of 
an  acceptance  of  authority  more  apparent  than 
real.  In  1883  or  1884  I  spent  a  week  or  ten  days 
in  the  college  preaching  on  the  two  Sundays, 

70 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

lecturing  nearly  every  day  during  the  intervening 
week,  and  giving  daily  "office  hours"  to  girls 
coming  with  questions,  sometimes  in  twos  or 
threes,  sometimes  in  larger  groups,  oftenest 
alone.  There  was  no  limit  to  their  coming;  the 
only  limit  was  set  by  my  strength  to  receive 
and  answer  them.  I  took  for  the  basis  of  my 
lectures  the  theme  of  the  Vassar  College  sermon, 
"The  foundations  of  faith,"  and  out  of  them 
subsequently  made  a  book  entitled  "In  Aid  of 
Faith"  which  is  still  in  circulation.  This  gave 
me  an  opportunity  to  study  the  effect  of  the 
"higher  education"  on  the  religious  life  of  girls, 
and  incidentally  to  study  the  president  of 
Wellesley  College. 

Walking  through  the  college  corridors  with 
her  almost  daily,  her  personal  familiarity  with 
her  three  hundred  pupils  filled  me  with  ever- 
increasing  amazement.  She  not  only  seemed  to 
know  them  all  by  name:  she  knew  their  families 
and  their  interests.  She  asked  one  about  her 
sick  mother,  another  whether  her  father  had  yet 
returned  from  Europe,  another  whether  her 
younger  sister  was  getting  ready  to  come  to 
college.  "How  ever  do  you  do  it?"  I  asked 
her.  "I  never  could."  "Oh,  yes!"  she  replied; 
"you  could  if  you  had  to.  It  is  simply  that  you 
never  had  to.  Whatever  we  have  to  do,  we  can 
always  do."  In  narrating  after  her  death  this 

71 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

conversation  to  her  husband,  I  added,  what  I 
venture  to  quote  here,  "This  quiet  confidence 
in  the  ability  to  do  what  needs  to  be  done  seems 
to  me  one  of  the  secrets  of  her  power.  She 
leaned  on  her  necessities,  instead  of  letting  her 
self  be  broken  by  them;  and  that  simple  dis 
closure  of  her  method  greatly  added  to  the 
power  of  my  life." 

No  doubt  this  power  to  carry  in  her  busy 
mind  these  details  of  the  lives  of  others  was  in 
part  a  native  gift;  but  it  was  one  which  she  had 
assiduously  cultivated,  and  she  told  me  once 
what  she  did  to  cultivate  it.  She  kept  a  memo 
randum  book  in  her  bedroom  in  which  were  the 
names  of  all  the  freshman  class.  Under  each 
name  she  wrote  whatever  information  she  from 
time  to  time  acquired.  These  notes  of  her 
pupils'  characters  and  experiences  she  studied 
as  they  studied  their  notes  of  the  lectures  of 
their  instructors.  Thus  while  her  students 
studied  their  lessons  she  studied  her  students, 
and  she  put  no  less  painstaking  into  her  studies 
than  the  most  studious  of  them  put  into  theirs. 
This  was  no  compulsory  or  professional  study. 
She  delighted  in  it.  She  wished  to  know  every 
pupil  that  she  might  better  befriend  every  pupil. 
It  was  true  for  her  then,  as  it  was  true  for  her 
always:  "It  is  people  that  count." 

She  had  not  merely  interest  in  her  pupils  and 

72 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

affection  for  them.  She  had  faith  in  them,  be 
lieved  in  them,  and  by  her  faith  inspired  them 
to  have  faith  in  themselves.  Little  beginnings 
of  desire,  mere  seeds  of  purpose  sprouted  in  the 
sunshine  of  her  appreciative  faith.  It  often 
happens  that  our  deeper  desires  are  hidden  even 
from  ourselves  by  some  superficial  wishes,  our 
enduring  purposes  by  some  temporary  incli 
nations.  Miss  Freeman  saw  these  subconscious 
forces  and  gave  them  power.  She  could  control 
by  authority  when  necessary;  but  she  much  pre 
ferred  to  call  into  life  the  power  of  self-control. 
Her  life  was  full  of  such  incidents  as  the  follow 
ing  narrated  by  her  husband : 

Amusing  stories  are  reported  of  girls  who  came  to  ask 
for  something,  and  went  away  delighted  to  have  obtained 
the  opposite.  One  of  them  says:  "In  the  spring  of  my 
senior  year  I  had  an  invitation  to  spend  the  holidays  in 
Washington,  and  my  family  strongly  urged  me  to  arrange 
the  visit.  Overjoyed,  I  went  to  Miss  Freeman  to  obtain 
permission  to  leave  college  several  days  before  the  va 
cation.  She  was  very  warm,  envying  me  the  prospect  of 
seeing  the  Capitol  for  the  first  time.  She  promised  to 
ask  the  Faculty  for  permission  and  to  state  to  them  how 
great  the  opportunity  for  me  was.  But  she  inquired  how 
many  examinations  and  written  exercises  I  should  miss, 
incidentally  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  pro 
fessors  would  have  to  give  me  special  ones  in  the  following 
term.  Gradually  I  felt  the  disadvantage  of  this  irregular 
ity.  Still,  there  was  Washington!  And  I  asked  if  she 

73 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

herself  would  not  be  tempted  to  go.  Indeed  she  would, 
she  said,  but  college  work  was  nearest,  the  first  business. 
A  Washington  invitation  might  come  again,  a  senior  year 
in  college,  never.  So,  quite  as  if  my  own  judgment  had 
been  my  guide,  I  decided  that  I  did  not  want  to  go  to 
Washington.  A  little  later,  when  the  office  door  had 
closed,  I  stopped  on  the  stairs  and  asked  myself  if  this  was 
the  same  person  who  had  passed  there  half  an  hour  before, 
and  what  had  induced  me  to  give  up  the  coveted  journey 
when  there  was  no  hint  on  Miss  Freeman's  part  of  com 
pulsion,  much  less  of  refusal." 

In  laying  emphasis,  as  throughout  this  paper 
I  am  doing,  on  Miss  Freeman's  power  to  awaken 
the  spirit  of  life  in  her  pupils  and  direct  it  in 
healthful  channels,  I  must  not  leave  the  im 
pression  that  she  shared  the  extraordinary  opin 
ion  of  some  skeptics  of  our  time  that  it  is  pos 
sible  to  cultivate  in  any  community  the  spirit  of 
religion  without  its  institutions.  As  well  ex 
pect  to  cultivate  the  spirit  of  music  in  a 
community  without  concerts,  of  art  in  a  com 
munity  without  picture  galleries,  of  education 
in  a  community  without  schools.  She  con 
ducted  the  daily  chapel  exercises  herself  and 
they  were  never  perfunctory.  The  Scripture 
readings  and  the  hymns  were  selected  with  care, 
and  the  services,  varying  with  the  varying  need 
of  the  college  or  the  varying  mood  of  the  presi 
dent,  were  always  characterized  by  a  sincere 
and  simple  spiritual  beauty.  She  herself  se- 

74 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

lected  with  care  the  preachers  for  the  Sunday 
services;  what  she  expected  from  them  and 
how  much  she  herself,  by  her  phrasing  of  her 
invitations  put  into  them,  the  following  much- 
prized  letter  may  here  indicate : 

Wellesley   College, 

January  18th,  1886. 
MY  DEAR  DR.  ABBOTT  : 

Is  it  not  time  that  we  should  hear  your  voice  in  the 
chapel  again?  It  seems  so  to  us,  and  that  the  time  of  times 
is  approaching  when  you  can  help  and  strengthen  us  here. 
The  last  Thursday  of  this  month,  the  28th,  is  the  Day  of 
Prayer  for  colleges.  It  has  always  been  a  great  day  in 
Wellesley,  a  day  full  of  seed-sowing,  and  often  of  decisions 
at  which  we  have  long  rejoiced.  All  college  exercises  are 
suspended  for  the  day.  We  have  a  sermon  in  the  morning, 
and  such  other  services  for  prayer  and  conference  as  seem 
to  be  useful  at  the  time;  but  the  day  and  evening  are  given 
up  to  thought  and  prayer  for  all  colleges  and  schools, 
especially  for  our  own,  and  for  all  here  who  are  not  Chris 
tians.  We  want  you  and  Mrs.  Abbott  with  us  on  this 
day  very  much.  The  work  you  did  with  the  students 
last  year  makes  it  possible  for  you  to  do  more  for  them  now 
than  any  one  else,  and  I  long  to  have  this  serious  and 
prayerful  spirit  which  now  prevails  in  the  College,  guided 
and  deepened  until  we  shall  be  one  in  Him.  If  you  can 
come  on  for  Thursday  and  follow  the  work  of  that  day, 
by  speaking  to  the  students  Friday  following  at  their 
Bible  hour  in  the  afternoon,  it  would  just  meet  our  desire. 
You  see,  dear  Dr.  Abbott,  what  we  need.  We  have  had 
very  good  daily  meetings  during  the  week  of  prayer,  grow 
ing  in  interest,  so  that  we  have  continued  to  have  meetings 

75 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

in  the  chapel  Tuesday  as  well  as  Thursday  evenings,  and 
each  one  is  more  hopeful  than  the  last.  Yet  there  are 
nearly  a  hundred  here  whose  names  are  not  on  the  Chris 
tian  Association  roll  and  whose  lives  are  not  devoted  to  our 
Master;  and  so  many  more  who  need  clearer  ideas  of  duty 
and  larger  faith  in  Him.  I  know  you  need  no  assurance 
of  our  desire  and  no  urging  to  come  to  our  help.  If  you 
can  find  it  possible  and  wise  for  yourself,  you  will  make 
us  a  visit  now  and  stay  as  long  as  you  can  and  bring  "the 
family."  The  Cottage  is  not  yet  finished,  but  we  can 
make  you  comfortable  in  the  midst  of  things,  and  you  shall 
have  so  many  chances  to  do  good!  There  is  nothing  I  can 
offer  beyond  that,  is  there?  And  there  is  much  to  tell  and 
hear  and  many  bits  of  advice  you  two  people  can  give  us. 
I  should  have  wTitten  this  to  Mrs.  Abbott,  but  I  have 
no  doubt  she  is  reading  it  to  spare  you  the  trouble,  like 
the  wife  she  is.  Otherwise  I  would  assure  you  that  she 
needs  a  vacation  and  that  we  will  be  better  to  her  this  time 
if  she  will  come  and  bring  you.  As  it  is  I  leave  it  all  to 
you  both,  with  Wellesley's  love  always. 

Yours  faithfully 

ALICE  E.  FREEMAN. 

Once  and  only  once  did  I  see  Miss  Freeman 
angry,  and  then  it  was  her  religion  that  made 
her  so.  An  unselfish  anger  is  not  a  brief  mad 
ness  and  her  anger  did  not  disturb  her  quiet  and 
wise  judgment  or  lead  her  even  for  a  moment  to 
lose  her  perfect  self-control.  The  committee  of 
the  American  Board  (Congregational)  for  For 
eign  Missions,  acting  under  the  leadership  of  one 
of  its  secretaries,  who  subsequently  resigned  his 

76 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

office,  adopted  the  policy  of  refusing  volunteers 
for  foreign  missionary  service  unless  they  could 
subscribe  to  the  secretary's  affirmation  that  all 
the  heathen  who  had  never  heard  of  Christ  were 
foredoomed  and  irreparably  lost.  Her  indig 
nation,  in  which  I  fully  shared,  was  as  much  be 
cause  of  the  wrong  it  did  the  Christian  Church  as 
because  of  the  wrong  it  did  two  of  her  pupils, 
devoted  followers  of  Christ,  fully  equipped  for  a 
Christian  service  to  which  they  had  dedicated 
themselves  and  for  which  they  had  for  some 
years  been  preparing.  During  the  controversy 
in  the  Congregational  churches  which  that  refusal 
created,  and  which  lasted  for  two  or  three  years, 
I  was  in  frequent  consultation  with  Miss  Free 
man  and  admired  alike  her  indignation  and  the 
strong  will  that  controlled  and  the  wise  judgment 
that  directed  it  to  beneficent  ends.  Emotion,  like 
fire,  is  a  good  servant.  Alice  Freeman  Palmer 
was  a  woman  of  strong  emotions  but  they  were 
always  under  the  control  of  a  stronger  will. 

Another  incident  in  her  life  indicated  this  self- 
control.  For  nothing  perhaps  better  illustrates 
this  habitual  control  over  the  emotions  than 
the  power  to  lay  aside  a  fascinating  work  on 
occasions  and  give  the  overstrained  nerves  a 
rest.  The  ability  to  do  this  is  the  best  pre 
ventive  of  nervous  exhaustion.  Miss  Freeman, 
who  followed  her  Master  in  daring  to  undertake 

77 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

great  things  and  in  giving  herself  without  re 
serve  to  their  accomplishment,  followed  him  also 
in  dropping  her  work  from  time  to  time  for 
periods  of  absolute  repose.  Occasionally,  leaving 
word  with  one  companion  whither  she  was  going, 
she  would  disappear,  no  one  else  knew  where  or 
why.  In  fact,  she  engaged  a  room  in  a  hotel  in 
Boston,  stayed  in  retirement  for  one,  two,  or  three 
days,  and  then  came  back  to  take  up  her  work 
again  with  rested  nerves  and  recuperated  strength. 
When  in  December,  1887,  she  married  Pro 
fessor  George  H.  Palmer  of  Harvard  College 
she  resigned  the  presidency  of  Wellesley  College 
and  with  it  the  professional  vocation  of  teacher. 
She  continued  to  teach  by  pen  and  voice  and  to 
take  an  active  part  by  her  counsels  in  the  edu 
cational  work  of  her  state  by  her  service  on  the 
Massachusetts  Board  of  Education.  But  her 
personal  relation  as  teacher  to  pupil  came  to  an 
end.  And  therefore  with  that  change  in  her 
life-activity  this  sketch  comes  to  an  end,  for  this 
is  not  a  Life  but  a  portrait,  and  a  portrait  only 
of  the  teacher.  All  her  friends  did  not  congratu 
late  her  on  her  marriage.  Some  thought  she 
might  have  married  and  still  retained  her  office- 
been  both  president  and  wife;  some  thought  she 
was  giving  up  a  position  of  great  influence  and 
power  for  a  minor  position.  I  shared  neither 
opinion.  A  happy  marriage,  I  believe,  is  always 

78 


ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

a  promotion,  always  adds  not  only  to  the  happi 
ness  but  to  the  largeness  and  richness  of  life. 
A  warm  personal  friend  of  both,  I  congratulated 
both  without  any  reserve.  And  I  had  no  wish 
to  see  Alice  Freeman  become  a  divided  president 
and  a  divided  wife;  and  I  had  no  apprehension 
that  she  would  do  so.  I  felt  what  in  the  follow 
ing  verse  she  has  expressed  with  a  beauty  of 
diction  which  I  could  never  emulate: 

Great  love  has  triumphed.     At  a  crisis  hour 
Of  strength  and  struggle  in  the  heights  of  life 

He  came,  and,  bidding  me  abandon  power, 
Called  me  to  take  the  quiet  name  of  wife. 

If  any  of  my  readers  desire  a  better  acquaint 
ance  with  Alice  Freeman  Palmer,  the  material  is 
available  in  her  biography  written  by  her  hus 
band  with  a  simplicity  that  is  more  than  elo 
quence  and  with  a  frankness  that  is  the  best 
possible  reserve.  From  a  little  book  of  her 
verse,  not  written  for  the  public  but  published 
by  her  husband  after  her  death,  I  select  here  one 
verse,  because  it  is  a  revelation  of  the  deeper 
experience  of  her  hidden  life : 

I  said  to  Pain,  I  will  not  have  thee  here ! 
The  nights  are  weary  and  the  days  are  drear 

In  thy  hard  company ! 

He  clasped  me  close  and  held  me  still  so  long 
I  learned  how  deep  his  voice,  how  sweet  his  song, 

How  far  his  eyes  can  see. 

79 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

It  was  customary  in  the  'eighties  for  Wellesley 
College  girls  to  elect  honorary  members  to  their 
classes.  That  honour  was  conferred  upon  me. 
Thus  enrolled  among  the  pupils  of  Alice  Free 
man  Palmer  I  venture  to  represent  them  as  well 
as  myself  by  writing  beneath  this  simple  pen- 
picture  of  our  honoured  teacher: 

Thy  gentleness  hath  made  me  great. 


80 


JOHN  FISKE,  EVOLUTIONIST 

ArOUNG  man  once  called  to  see  me  with 
the  following  account  of  his  experience: 
"I  was  brought  up  to  believe  that  the 
Bible  is  inspired  and  infallible  in  all  its  state 
ments;  that  the  world  was  made  out  of  nothing 
in  six  days  of  twenty-four  hours  each;  that  God 
made  a  perfect  man  six  thousand  years  ago;  that 
he  fell;  and  that  because  of  his  fall  sin,  misery, 
and  death  have  entered  into  the  world.  In  that 
faith  I  joined  the  Church  when  I  was  a  boy.  I 
have  since  learned  that  the  world  was  not  made 
in  six  days;  that  man  has  lived  on  the  earth  a 
great  deal  longer  than  six  thousand  years;  that 
he  was  gradually  developed  out  of  a  lower  animal 
form;  and  that  the  only  fall  has  been  a  fall  up 
ward.  The  Bible  is  gone;  my  faith  is  gone  with 
it;  and  now  I  do  not  know  whether  there  is  a  God 
in  the  universe  or  a  soul  in  the  body." 

This  interprets  the  overthrow  of  the  faith  of 
thousands  which  characterized  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  a  faith  founded 
on  a  book  and  on  a  false  interpretation  of  that 
book;  and  when  science  undermined  the  foun 
dation  the  superstructure  fell. 

81 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

It  was  in  this  period  that  John  Fiske  lived. 
He  was  born  in  1842,  died  in  1901.  His  father 
died,  his  mother  married  again;  and  his  boyhood 
was  spent  in  Middletown,  Connecticut,  with  his 
grandmother,  whose  name  he  took.  His  mother 
and  his  grandmother  were  devout  souls  whose 
genuine  piety  was  mated  with  a  mechanical 
though  harmonious  philosophy.  Mr.  Clark 
in  his  biography  of  Mr.  Fiske*  gives  in  twelve 
propositions  a  fairly  accurate  skeleton  of  Cal 
vinism,  but  as  a  portrait  of  living  Calvinism  it 
is  about  as  accurate  as  was  Yorick's  skull  of 
Hamlet's  friend.  The  reverence  for  God,  the 
obedience  to  law,  the  sense  of  human  dignity 
and  worth  lost  in  the  fall,  but  to  be  regained 
in  redemption,  are  all  left  out.  Happily  they 
were  not  left  out  from  the  experience  of  Mrs. 
Stoughton  and  Mrs.  Fiske.  The  boy  was  not 
only  instructed  in  the  theology  of  his  mother 
and  his  grandmother,  but  he  imbibed  something 
of  their  spirit.  When  he  threw  away  their  dog 
mas,  he  retained  the  inspiration  of  their  lives 
and  reconciled  in  himself  science  and  religion. 
His  broad  scholarship  and  his  literary  skill  en 
abled  him  later  to  illustrate  by  his  pen  what 
he  experienced  in  his  life — both  the  overthrow 
of  faith  and  its  reestablishment  on  a  firmer 
foundation  than  before. 

*  "The  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Fiske."    By  John  Spencer  Clark.    Illustrated.    2  vols. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston.   $7.50. 

82 


JOHN  FISKE 

In  boyhood  he  was  an  omnivorous  reader. 
Everything  interested  him  in  the  world  of  things 
and  the  world  of  ideas.  He  had  an  extraordi 
narily  open  mind  and  an  eager  curiosity.  The 
story  of  his  boyhood  makes  the  reader  wonder 
whether  our  present  system  of  education  is  not 
lamentably  inefficient  and  wasteful,  whether  a 
better  system  could  not  accomplish  for  ordinary 
boys  what  this  extraordinary  boy  accomplished 
for  himself.  At  eleven  years  of  age  he  wrote  to 
his  mother:  "We  had  an  examination  Thurs 
day.  I  was  examined  in  Greenleaf's  Arithmetic; 
Perkins  and  Loomis'  Algebra;  through  four 
books  Euclid;  through  Hedge's  Logic;  through 
four  books  Caesar;  eight  books  Virgil;  four  Orat. 
Cicero  and  the  Graeca  Majora;  through  the 
Latin  and  Greek  grammars;  and  last,  but  not 
least  dreaded,  through  Greek  syntax.  Mr. 
Brewer  said  I  passed  an  admirable  examination. 
I  am  reading  Sallust,  which  is  so  easy  that  I  have 
read  forty -eight  chapters  without  looking  in  the 
dictionary."  A  year  later  he  earned  the  money 
with  which  to  buy  a  good  Greek-English  diction 
ary.  His  grandmother  thought  five  dollars  a 
large  sum  for  so  unpractical  a  luxury;  but  when 
he  had  earned  by  hard  work  $3.60  she  gave  him 
the  balance  needed  for  the  purchase.  At  thirteen 
years  of  age,  in  addition  to  his  school  studies, 
carried  on  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  teachers, 

83 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

he  was  reading,  among  other  authors,  Grote, 
Emerson,  Bayne,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Hugh 
Miller,  and  Humboldt's  "Cosmos."  He  wrote 
his  mother:  "Do  you  not  consider  Humboldt 
the  greatest  man  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
the  most  erudite  that  ever  lived?"  His  leisure 
time  he  gave  to  music  and  religion:  taught  in  the 
Sunday-school,  assigned  two  evenings  a  week  to 
revival  meetings,  led  the  singing,  and  took  an 
active  part  in  the  speaking.  He  entered  Har 
vard  in  preference  to  Yale  because  "the  course 
at  Harvard  is  very  different  and  much 
harder.  .  .  .  It  is  a  bad  place  for  a  care 
less  scholar,  but  unequalled  in  facilities  for  an 
ambitious  one." 

By  this  time  (1860)  his  scientific  studies  had 
led  him,  after  much  questioning,  to  reject  what 
our  author  calls  "dogmatic  Christianity,"  but 
I  should  call  dogmatic  Calvinism.  Unfortu 
nately,  the  pastor  of  his  church  was  wholly  un 
able  to  understand  the  working  of  his  mind. 
This  pastor  called  upon  the  grandmother  to  get 
more  light  on  the  cause  of  John's  backsliding. 
The  grandmother  stoutly  maintained  that  John 
could  not  be  an  infidel. 

"Why,"  said  she,  "he  never  did  a  bad  thing  in  his  life, 
and  then,  he  is  such  a  faithful  student."  "Yes,"  said 
Doctor  Taylor,  "that  makes  him  all  the  worse.  He  does 
not  believe  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  nor  in  the  Divin- 

84 


JOHN  FISKE 

ity  of  Christ,  and  he  has  given  up  the  Church."  Still  she 
maintained  he  could  not  be  an  infidel,  and  in  the  inno 
cence  of  her  heart  she  took  Doctor  Taylor  into  John's  library 
to  see  the  fine  collection  of  books  he  had  got  together,  all 
of  which  she  knew  he  had  read.  Alas,  to  the  heresy -hunter 
the  exhibit  was  too  conclusive!  There  side  by  side  with 
books  of  sound  orthodoxy  were  many  ancient  classics,  and 
the  works  of  Humboldt,  Voltaire,  Lewes,  Fichte,  Schlegel, 
Buckle,  Cuvier,  Laplace,  Milne-Edwards,  De  Quincey, 
Theodore  Parker,  Strauss,  Comte,  Grote,  Gibbon,  and 
John  Stuart  Mill.  Doctor  Taylor  had  no  praise  to  bestow 
upon  such  a  collection  of  books  in  the  hands  of  his  young 
parishioner,  and  in  response  to  the  inquiry  as  to  what  he 
thought  of  them,  he  could  only  shake  his  head. 

The  Harvard  of  1860  was  very  different  from 
the  Harvard  of  to-day.  It  had  its  theological 
standard,  which  its  students  were  expected  to 
accept  on  the  authority  of  their  teachers.  It 
was  as  dogmatic  as  Princeton,  though  the  stand 
ard  was  different.  "The  College,"  says  Senator 
Hoar  in  his  autobiography,  "had  rejected  the 
old  Calvinistic  creed  of  New  England  and  sub 
stituted  in  its  stead  the  strict  Unitarianism  of 
Doctor  Ware  and  Andrews  Norton,  a  creed  in  its 
substance  hardly  more  tolerant  or  liberal  than 
that  which  it  supplanted."  No  New  England 
college  had  yet  learned  that  the  object  of  edu 
cation  is  to  enable  the  pupils  to  do  their  own 
thinking. 

But  young  Fiske  was  already  on  his  way  to  the 

85 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

definition  of  education  which  seven  years  later 
he  expressed  in  a  characteristic  sentence.  The 
object  of  education,  he  said,  is  the  teaching  "of 
the  student  to  think  for  himself  and  then  to  give 
him  the  material  to  exercise  his  thought  upon." 

When  at  eighteen  years  of  age  he  entered 
Harvard  he  had  already  become  a  convinced  and 
enthusiastic  though  imperfectly  educated  evo 
lutionist.  So  enthusiastic  was  he  that  when 
he  found  in  a  Boston  book  store  the  original  pros 
pectus  of  Herbert  Spencer's  system  of  philoso 
phy  to  be  published  in  quarterly  numbers  and 
sold  by  subscription  if  a  sufficient  number  of 
subscribers  could  be  found,  he  put  his  name  down 
for  $2.50  a  year  and  wrote  to  his  mother  that 
if  he  had  two  thousand  dollars  he  would  lay 
one  thousand  at  Mr.  Spencer's  feet  to  help  him 
execute  his  great  work. 

But  in  Cambridge  he  found  as  little  sympathy 
for  his  new  thought  as  in  Middletown,  and 
scarcely  any  more  liberty  for  either  thought  or  ac 
tion.  In  one  respect  the  difficulties  he  encountered 
were  greater.  In  Middletown  they  were  wholly 
religious;  in  Cambridge  they  were  also  academic. 
For  not  only  was  the  philosophy  taught  hostile 
to  the  new  doctrine,  but  Agassiz,  at  that  time 
the  most  popular  and  famous  teacher  of  natural 
science  in  America,  was  as  strongly  opposed  to 
evolution  as  were  the  orthodox  theologians. 

86 


JOHN  FISKE 

John  Fiske  was  summoned  before  the  Faculty 
and  charged  with  disseminating  infidelity  among 
the  students,  and  escaped  a  sentence  of  suspen 
sion  only  after  a  hot  battle  between  the  accused 
and  the  defendants  of  intellectual  liberty.  The 
offence  of  reading  in  chapel,  which  was  made 
the  occasion  of  a  charge  against  him,  he  admit 
ted,  apologized  for,  and  never  repeated. 

The  American  hostility  to  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  was  not  unnatural.  For  in  England 
the  leading  evolutionists  were  frankly  agnostic. 
They  reluctantly  discarded  or  were  avowedly 
indifferent  to  the  theological  dogmas  which  were 
then  generally  regarded  and  still  are  often  re 
garded,  as  essential  parts  of  the  Christian  faith, 
and  if  they  did  not  reject,  they  certainly  did  not 
uphold,  beliefs  which  are  essential  to  any  rational 
recognition  of  the  reality  and  trustworthiness 
of  the  spiritual  belief  in  a  personal  God  and  in  a 
conscious  personal  immortality.  The  evolution 
ists  were  indignant  that  they  were  charged  with 
being  materialists,  but  if  we  consider  the  poverty 
of  language  and  the  universal  tendency  among 
the  mass  of  men  to  misunderstand  any  new 
philosophy,  we  cannot  wonder  at  the  charge. 

The  four  most  eminent  evolutionists  in  Eng 
land  were  Spencer,  Huxley,  Darwin,  and  Tyndall. 

The  clearest  expression  of  faith  in  a  personal 
God  that  I  have  been  able  to  find  in  the  writings 

87 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

of  either  one  of  these  evolutional  philosophers  is 
contained  in  the  famous  "Belfast  Address"  of 
John  Tyndall,  who  quotes  Thomas  Carlyle  as 
saying,  "Did  I  not  believe  that  an  Intelligence 
is  at  the  heart  of  things,  my  life  on  earth  would 
be  intolerable."  Tyndall  neither  criticises  nor 
endorses  this  statement;  he  merely  adds:  "The 
utterance  of  these  words  is  not,  in  my  opinion, 
rendered  less  but  more  noble  by  the  fact  that 
it  was  the  need  of  ethical  harmony  here,  and  not 
the  thought  of  personal  happiness  hereafter, 
that  prompted  his  observation." 

Herbert  Spencer  could  get  no  nearer  Christian 
faith  in  God  as  a  Father  than  the  assurance 
that  "amid  the  mysteries  that  the  more  they 
are  thought  about,  the  more  mysterious  they 
appear,  there  still  remains  the  one  absolute 
certainty  that  he  is  ever  in  the  presence  of  an 
Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all 
things  proceed." 

Charles  Darwin  never  denied  but  never  af 
firmed  that  there  is  any  evidence  of  an  intelligent 
purpose  in  nature.  Reporting  a  conversation 
with  Mr.  Darwin  during  the  last  year  of  his  life, 
the  Duke  of  Argyll  says:  "I  said  to  Mr.  Darwin, 
with  reference  to  some  of  his  own  remarkable 
works  on  the  'Fertilization  of  Orchards'  and  on 
'The  Earthworms,'  eit  was  impossible  to  look  at 
these  without  seeing  that  they  were  the  effect 

88 


JOHN  FISKE 

and  expression  of  mind.'  I  shall  never  forget 
Mr.  Darwin's  answer.  He  looked  at  me  hard 
and  said:  'Well,  that  often  comes  over  me  with 
overwhelming  force;  but  at  other  times,'  and  he 
shook  his  head  vaguely,  adding,  'it  seems  to  go 
away.' ' 

Mr.  Huxley,  after  reciting  some  of  the  con 
troversies  among  philosophers  respecting  the 
nature  of  the  Deity,  contemptuously  dismisses 
the  whole  subject  with  the  words:  "Truly  on 
this  topic  silence  is  golden;  while  speech  reaches 
not  even  the  dignity  of  sounding  brass  or  tinkling 
cymbal,  and  is  but  the  weary  clatter  of  an  end 
less  logomachy." 

Though  John  Fiske  definitely  abandoned  cer 
tain  of  the  dogmas  held  as  an  essential  part  of 
the  Christian  faith  by  his  ancestors,  he  never 
abandoned  his  faith  in  the  reality  of  the  spiritual 
life — involving  faith  in  a  personal  God  and 
in  personal  immortality.  But  when  in  1869 
Charles  W.  Eliot  was  elected  president  of  Har 
vard  College  and  introduced  the  new  regime  of 
intellectual  liberty  by  inviting  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  and  John  Fiske  to  lecture,  Mr.  Fiske 
became  the  target  for  bitter  attacks  in  which 
honest  misunderstanding  and  malicious  misrepre 
sentation  united  in  an  endeavour  to  down  the 
young  man  who  was  then  the  foremost  repre 
sentative  in  America  of  the  new  philosophy. 

89 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

The  publication  of  his  Lectures  was  characterized 
as  part  of  a  plan  obtaining  among  free-thinkers 
to  disseminate  far  and  wide  attacks  upon  the 
system  of  "revealed  religion,"  and  the  new  policy 
inaugurated  by  the  new  president  was  labelled 
"Harvard's  Raid  on  Religion."  When  in  1870 
Fiske  was  nominated  as  temporary  Acting 
Professor  of  History,  the  nomination  was  con 
firmed,  but  only  by  a  bare  majority.  "It  was 
openly  charged  that  Fiske  was  a  pronounced 
atheist,  and  the  more  dangerous  because  of  his 
learning  and  ability."  The  hostility  was  so 
great  to  his  holding  any  permanent  position  in 
the  Faculty  that  no  attempt  was  made  to  secure 
for  him  a  permanent  appointment. 

This  hostility  did  not  cause  Mr.  Fiske  to 
modify  his  views  nor  did  it  embitter  him  against 
his  assailants.  He  apparently  never  attacked 
them  and  rarely  defended  himself.  He  went 
on  completing  his  preparations  for  the  publica 
tion  both  in  England  and  the  United  States  of 
his  exposition  of  evolution,  entitled  "Cosmic 
Philosophy,"  and  he  repeated  his  message  in 
lectures  to  such  audiences  as  wished  to  hear  them. 
But  if  he  neither  attacked  his  enemies  nor  di 
rectly  defended  himself  from  them  he  showed 
ability,  very  rare  in  pioneers,  to  learn  from  them. 
A  cartoon  casting  ridicule  on  evolution  by  de 
picting  Spencer  and  Fiske  endeavouring  to  fly  a 

90 


JOHN  FISKE 

kite  labelled  "The  doctrine  of  evolution"  with 
a  frog,  a  crocodile,  two  monkeys,  and  some  other 
animals  tied  to  it  to  constitute  its  tail,  he  had 
framed  and  hung  in  his  study.  His  comment 
was:  "I  like  to  keep  this  design  before  me  as  a 
sort  of  theological  barometer — objections  to  it 
show  how  rapidly  the  religious  mind  is  moving 
toward  the  great  truths  of  'Cosmic  Evolution." 
He  studied  the  current  criticisms  both  scientific 
and  theological,  not  to  conform  his  teaching  to 
the  current  beliefs,  but  to  understand  how  so  to 
explain  the  new  outlook  upon  the  universe  as 
to  make  it  understandable  even  by  those  preju 
diced  against  it.  He  wrote  to  his  mother: 

When  my  "Cosmic  Philosophy"  comes  out,  you  will  see 
how  utterly  impossible  it  is  that  Christianity  should  die 
out;  but  utterly  inevitable  it  is  that  it  should  be  meta 
morphosed  even  as  it  has  been  metamorphosed  over  and 
over  again. 

From  the  scholars,  who  are  quite  often  the  ones 
most  prejudiced  by  tradition,  he  appealed  to  the 
reason  and  to  the  reasonable  emotions  of  the 
people.  The  spirit  in  which  these  lectures  were 
given  and  how  they  were  received  I  can  best  in 
dicate  by  an  extract  from  a  letter  written  to  his 
mother  from  Boston  in  1872: 

My  concluding  lecture — on  the  "Critical  Attitude  of 
Philosophy  toward  Christianity,"  in  which,  as  the  con 
summation  of  my  long  course,  I  threw  a  blaze  of  new  light 

91 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

upon  the  complete  harmony  between  Christianity  and  the 
deepest  scientific  philosophy,  was  given  Friday  noon,  and 
was  received  with  immense  applause.  You  ought  to  have 
been  there.  I  suppose  there  was  some  eloquence  as  well  as 
logic  in  it,  for  many  of  the  ladies  in  the  audience  were 
moved  to  tears.  Many  were  the  expressions  almost  of 
affection  which  I  got  afterward.  The  best  effect  of  it 
will  be  to  destroy  the  absurd  theological  prejudice  which 
has  hitherto  worked  against  me,  chiefly  with  those  people 
who  haven't  had  the  remotest  idea  of  what  my  views  are. 
I  have  long  known  that  my  views  needed  only  to  be 
known  to  be  sympathized  with  by  the  most  truly  re 
ligious  part  of  the  community  of  whatever  sect;  that  when 
thoroughly  stated  and  understood,  they  disarm  opposition, 
and  leave  no  ground  for  dissension  anywhere — and  this 
winter's  experiment  has  proved  that  I  was  right. 

Twelve  years  later,  invited  to  present  his  views 
before  the  Concord  School  of  Philosophy  at 
Concord,  Massachusetts,  he  gave  in  two  suc 
cessive  years  two  lectures  subsequently  published 
in  small  books  entitled  respectively:  "The  Des 
tiny  of  Man"  and  "The  Idea  of  God."  The  re 
lation  of  modern  scientific  thought  to  the  re 
ligious  life  has  been  more  fully  treated  since  then 
by  different  writers,  but  I  do  not  know  where  the 
student  can  find,  even  now,  presented  with  equal 
brevity  and  clearness,  the  new  arguments  which 
the  evolutionary  hypothesis  furnishes  in  sup 
port  of  faith  in  personal  immortality  and  a  per 
sonal  God.  Here  all  I  can  do  is  to  indicate  very 


JOHN  FISKE 

briefly  and  therefore  imperfectly  the  line  of  Mr. 
Fiske's  thought  in  these  volumes. 

The  Destiny  of  Man.  It  is  true  that  life  be 
yond  the  grave  is  incapable  of  scientific  demon 
stration  since  it  is  a  hope,  and  "hope  that  is  seen 
is  not  hope:  for  what  a  man  seeth  why  doeth  he 
yet  hope  for  it?"  But  it  is  also  true  that  de 
velopment  must  have  a  goal  as  well  as  a  begin 
ning,  and  the  opinion  that  the  human  race  is 
ascending  from  a  purely  animal  ancestry  and 
has  not  yet  reached  its  goal  gives  a  right  to 
anticipate  a  further  development  in  a  future  life. 
And  Mr.  Fiske  found  in  the  materialists'  phi 
losophy  the  same  kind  of  assumption  that  the 
materialists  treated  with  such  scorn  when  they 
found  it  in  the  philosophy  of  the  theologians. 

The  materialistic  assumption  that  the  life  of  the  soul 
ends  with  the  life  of  the  body  is  perhaps  the  most  colossal 
instance  of  baseless  assumption  that  is  known  to  the  his 
tory  of  philosophy.  No  evidence  for  it  can  be  alleged  be 
yond  the  familiar  fact  that  during  the  present  life  we  know 
Soul  only  in  its  association  with  Body,  and  therefore  can 
not  discover  disembodied  soul  without  dying  ourselves. 
This  fact  must  always  prevent  us  from  obtaining  direct 
evidence  for  the  belief  in  the  soul's  survival.  But  a  nega 
tive  presumption  is  not  created  by  the  absence  of  proof  in 
cases  where,  in  the  nature  of  things,  proof  is  inaccessible. 
With  his  illegitimate  hypothesis  of  annihilation,  the  mater 
ialist  transgresses  the  bounds  of  experience  quite  as  widely 
as  the  poet  who  sings  of  the  New  Jerusalem  with  its  river 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

of  life  and  its  streets  of  gold.     Scientifically  speaking, 
there  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  for  either  view. 

The  Idea  of  God.  The  Darwinian  biology  by 
exhibiting  Man  as  the  terminal  fact  in  that  stu 
pendous  process  of  evolution  whereby  things 
have  come  to  be  what  they  are,  makes  a  future 
continuation  of  that  process  a  reasonable  hope, 
and  faith  in  a  spiritual  Power  producing  and 
directing  it  a  reasonable  and  indeed  a  scienti 
fically  necessary  faith.  "The  whole  tendency 
of  modern  science  is  to  impress  upon  us  even 
more  forcibly  the  truth  that  the  entire  modern 
universe  is  an  immense  unit,  animated  through 
all  its  parts  by  a  single  principle  of  life";  "there 
appears  a  reasonableness  in  the  universe  such 
as  had  not  appeared  before";  and  it  is  seen  that 
"the  presence  of  God  is  the  one  all-pervading 
fact  of  life  from  which  there  is  no  escape."  It 
is  true  that  this  God  is  indefinable,  but  he  is  not 
unknown. 

Though  we  may  not  by  searching  find  out  God,  though 
we  may  not  compass  infinitude  or  attain  to  absolute  knowl 
edge,  we  may  at  least  know  all  that  it  concerns  us  to  know, 
as  intelligent  and  responsible  beings.  They  who  seek  to 
know  more  than  this,  to  transcend  the  conditions  under 
which  alone  is  knowledge  possible,  are,  in  Goethe's  pro 
found  language,  as  wise  as  little  children  who,  when  they 
have  looked  into  a  mirror,  turn  it  around  to  see  what  is 
behind  it. 

94 


JOHN  FISKE 

This  imperfect  interpretation  from  Mr.  Fiske's 
little  books  may,  I  hope,  send  some  of  my  readers 
to  the  books  themselves  for  their  singularly 
lucid  explanations  of  the  spiritual  significance 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  The  conclusion 
to  which  Mr.  Fiske  brings  his  readers  in  the  con 
cluding  paragraph  of  the  second  book  may  fairly 
be  regarded  as  the  confession  of  faith  of  the  fore 
most  American  evolutionists  of  his  time. 

Of  some  things  we  may  feel  sure.  Humanity  is  not  a 
mere  local  incident  in  an  endless  and  aimless  series  of  cos- 
mical  changes.  The  events  of  the  universe  are  not  the 
work  of  change,  neither  are  they  the  outcome  of  blind 
necessity.  Practically  there  is  a  purpose  in  the  world 
whereof  it  is  our  highest  duty  to  learn  the  lesson,  however 
well  or  ill  we  may  fare  in  rendering  a  scientific  account  of 
it.  When  from  the  dawn  of  life  we  see  all  things  working 
together  toward  the  evolution  of  the  highest  spiritual 
attributes  of  Man,  we  know,  however  the  words  may  stum 
ble  in  which  we  try  to  say  it,  that  God  is  in  the  deepest 
sense  a  moral  Being.  The  everlasting  source  of  phe 
nomena  is  none  other  than  the  infinite  Power  that  makes 
for  righteousness.  Thou  canst  not  by  searching  find  Him 
out;  yet  put  thy  trust  in  Him,  and  against  thee  the  gates 
of  hell  shall  not  prevail;  for  there  is  neither  wisdom  nor 
understanding  nor  counsel  against  the  Eternal. 

The  opposition  to  Mr.  Fiske  was  for  a  time 
seemingly   successful:   it  disappointed  his  am 
bition  and  President  Eliot's  desire,  for  it  pre- 
95 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

vented  his  appointment  to  a  professor's  chair 
in  Harvard  University.  But  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  it  added  to  his  usefulness.  It 
enabled  him  to  understand  the  religious  op 
position  to  the  doctrine  of  evolution  and  to 
give  to  that  doctrine  an  exposition  of  its  spiritual 
implications  which  none  of  the  leaders  of  the  new 
thought  in  England  had  ever  attempted  to  do. 
The  bitterness  of  the  opposition  was  gradu 
ally  mitigated  and  finally  almost  wholly  disap 
peared.  He  began  to  be  invited  by  ministers 
to  preach  in  their  pulpits;  his  biographer  gives 
the  title  of  three  addresses  that  he  prepared  to 
meet  these  invitations :  "  The  Mystery  of  Evil" ; 
"The  Cosmic  Roots  of  Love  and  Self -Sacrifice" ; 
"The  Everlasting  Reality  of  Religion."  And  in 
1879  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Board  of 
Overseers  of  Harvard  College,  the  body  which 
with  difficulty  had  been  induced  to  allow  him  to 
occupy  a  professor's  chair,  even  temporarily,  less 
than  ten  years  before.  Of  his  subsequent  ser 
vice  to  his  countrymen  by  his  deservedly  popular 
contributions  to  the  history  of  his  country  I  do 
not  speak,  for  this  essay  is  devoted  solely  to  an 
estimate  of  John  Fiske — Evolutionist. 

Here,  therefore,  I  must  leave  him,  at  forty- 
three  years  of  age,  the  acknowledged  leader  of 
the  evolution  movement  in  the  United  States, 
and  recognized  as  their  colleague  and  peer  by 

96 


JOHN  FISKE 

such  leaders  of  evolutionary  thought  in  Eng 
land  as  Spencer,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Lewes,  Lyell, 
and  Darwin.  Of  his  home  life  an  indication  is 
afforded  by  his  charming  dedication  to  his  wife 
of  the  volume  in  which  he  brought  his  career  as 
a  teacher  of  evolutionary  philosophy  to  its  close : 

TO 

MY  WIFE 

IN  REMEMBRANCE  OF  THE  SWEET  SUNDAY  MORNING 

UNDER    THE    APPLE-TREE    ON    THE    HILLSIDE 
WHEN  WE  TWO  SAT  LOOKING  DOWN  INTO  FAIRY  WOODLAND 

PATHS  AND  TALKED  OF  THE  THINGS 

SINCE  WRITTEN  IN  THIS  LITTLE  BOOK 

I  NOW  DEDICATE  IT 

Something  like  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago, 
preaching  at  Yale  University,  Sunday  morning, 
I  announced  that  in  the  evening  I  would  speak 
to  the  students  on  evolution  and  religion.  The 
lecture  room  of  the  Y.M.C.A.  building  was 
crowded  and  overflowed  into  an  adjoining  room 
and  into  the  hallway;  and  when,  after  speaking 
nearly  half  an  hour,  I  announced  a  recess  in 
order  that  young  men  who  were  engaged  or 
desirous  to  attend  evening  service  in  any  of  the 
churches  might  do  so,  not  enough  went  out  to 
leave  room  for  outsiders  waiting  an  opportunity 
to  come  in.  To-day  such  an  announcement 
would  detract  rather  than  attract.  The  student 

97 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

world  is  no  longer  perplexed  by  the  supposed  con 
tradiction  between  science  and  religion;  that  is, 
between  the  recognized  laws  of  the  material 
world  and  the  spiritual  consciousness  of  men. 
This  world  neither  rejects  science  as  infidel  nor 
religion  as  a  superstition,  though  it  has  rejected 
much  of  the  old  theology  and  has  reinterpreted 
and  reestimated  the  Bible. 

This  change  has  been  accompanied  by  radical 
changes  in  religious  thought,  but  not  by  a  loss  of 
faith.  On  the  contrary,  and  any  one  who  is  famil 
iar  with  college  life  knows  that  much  more  respect 
is  paid  to-day  by  our  college  students  not  only 
to  ethical  rules,  not  only  to  the  spirit  of  Chris 
tianity,  but  also  to  its  institutions.  The  work 
of  the  Y.M.C.A.  is  far  more  effective;  the  atten 
dance  at  church  service  where  attendance  is 
voluntary  is  larger;  where  attendance  is  required 
the  attention  is  better  and  more  reverent.  That 
this  change  in  doctrinal  views  has  been  accom 
plished  in  this  country  with  a  gain,  not  a  loss,  in 
religious  life  is  largely  due  to  the  influence  of  three 
men — James  McCosh,  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
and  John  Fiske. 

In  England  the  churches  met  the  evolutionists 
either  with  bitter  hostility  or  with  cold  indiffer 
ence.  Doctor  Martineau  signified  a  qualified  ac 
ceptance  of  evolution;  but  his  qualifications  in 
volved  a  flat  denial  of  an  unbroken  progress,  and 

98 


JOHN  FISKE 

therefore  of  evolution,  as  John  Fiske  defines  it, 
"God's  way  of  doing  things."  The  whole  sub 
ject  is  conspicuous  by  its  absence  from  the  writ 
ings  of  such  liberal  theologians  as  Maurice, 
Stanley,  and  Robertson.  In  this  country  evo 
lution  was  welcomed  by  Doctor  McCosh,  the 
president  of  its  largest  Presbyterian  college,  and 
by  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  the  pastor  of  what  was 
then  its  largest  and  most  famous  Puritan  church. 
And  Mr.  Beecher  was  instrumental  with  others 
in  procuring  the  republication  in  this  country  of 
the  work  of  the  leading  evolutionary  authors  in 
England,  preached  and  lectured  extensively  in 
favour  of  the  theory  and  of  its  application  to  the 
problems  of  the  religious  life,  and  joined  with 
Mr.  Fiske  in  a  testimonial  dinner  to  Herbert 
Spencer  on  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Spencer's  last 
visit  to  this  country.  Mr.  Fiske,  approaching 
the  problem  of  evolution  and  religion  from  the 
scientific  side,  separated  himself  from  his  Eng 
lish  contemporaries  by  his  faith  in  "The  Ever 
lasting  Reality  of  Religion,"  and  in  the  immor 
tality  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  To  no  one 
man  more  than  to  John  Fiske  do  we  owe  the 
fact  that  in  this  country  science  and  religion  are 
not  foes,  and  that  in  increasing  numbers  their 
respective  advocates  recognize  in  each  other 
comrades,  seeking  by  different  paths  to  come 
to  a  knowledge  of  the  truth. 

99 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE,  AN  AMERICAN 
ABOU  BEN  ADEEM 

Abou  Ben  Adhem  (may  his  tribe  increase !) 

Awoke  one  night  from  a  deep  dream  of  peace, 

And  saw,  within  the  moonlight  in  his  room, 

Making  it  rich,  and  like  a  lily  in  bloom, 

An  angel  writing  in  a  book  of  gold : — 

Exceeding  peace  had  made  Ben  Adhem  bold, 

And  to  the  Presence  in  the  room  he  said, 

"What  writest  thou?" — The  vision  raised  its  head, 

And  with  a  look  made  of  all  sweet  accord, 

Answer'd,  "The  names  of  those  who  love  the  Lord." 

"And  is  mine  one?"  said  Abou.     "Nay,  not  so," 

Replied  the  angel.     Abou  spoke  more  low, 

But  cheerily  still;  and  said,  "I  pray  thee  then, 

Write  me  as  one  that  loves  his  fellow  men." 

The  angel  wrote  and  vanished.    The  next  night 

It  came  again  with  a  great  wakening  light, 

And  show'd  the  names  whom  love  of  God  had  bless'd 

And  lo !    Ben  Adhem' s  name  led  all  the  rest. 

NO  ONE  who  really  knew  Edward  Ever 
ett  Hale  could  have  doubted  that  he 
loved  God.     As  much  as  any  man  I 
ever  knew  he  understood  the  saying  of  Christ: 
"I  call  you  not  servants,  but  I  have  called  you 
friends." 

100 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

He  and  I  many  years  ago  conducted  together 
one  Sunday  morning  a  service  in  a  Baptist 
church  in  the  Adirondacks.  I  preached  the 
sermon;  he  made  what  is  infelicitously  called 
the  "long  prayer."  After  he  had  prayed,  it 
seemed  to  me  quite  unnecessary  for  me  to 
preach.  For  by  his  prayer  he  had  brought 
us  into  the  immediate  presence  of  God,  and 
that  is  what  we  go  to  church  for,  is  it  not? 
I  was  specially  impressed  not  with  the  literary 
beauty  of  his  prayer  as  with  the  prayers  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  but  with  the  spiritual 
beauty  of  his  prayer,  as  with  some  of  those  in 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  I  did  not  notice 
then,  I  do  not  recall  now,  the  form  of  his  prayer. 
But  I  was  conscious  of  an  invisible  presence  in 
the  room,  of  One  with  whom  he  was  talking 
"face  to  face."  Nothing  else  counted. 

There  is  a  great  difference  between  the  Re 
ligion  of  Humanity  and  the  Humanity  of  Re 
ligion.  John  Cotter  Morison  has  interpreted 
the  Religion  of  Humanity.  In  his  volume  en 
titled  "The  Service  of  Man"  he  contends  that 
the  service  of  God  has  been  an  injury  to  the 
human  race  and  for  it  we  need  to  substitute  the 
service  of  our  fellowmen.  That  was  not  Ed 
ward  Everett  Hale's  faith.  Nevertheless,  I 
think  if  the  Angel  had  come  to  him  he  would 
have  hesitated  to  write  himself  down  as  one  who 

101 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

loved  the  Lord  and  would  have  said  with  Abou 
Ben  Adhem 

"I  pray  thee  then, 
Write  me  as  one  that  loves  his  fellow  men." 

Under  the  title  "A  New  England  Boyhood" 
Doctor  Hale  has  written  a  charming  account  of 
his  early  home,  his  school  and  his  college  life,  and 
of  Boston  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  To  that  story  and  to  the  remarkable 
biography  by  his  son  Everett  Hale,  Jr.,  I  am 
indebted  for  the  little  history  in  this  article  be 
yond  my  own  personal  recollections. 

Edward  Everett  Hale  was  born  in  Boston, 
May  14,  1822.  His  father  was  the  owner  and 
editor  of  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser  when  that 
journal  was  the  recognized  organ  of  the  intel 
lectual  aristocracy  of  eastern  Massachusetts. 
The  daily  paper  was  less  a  gatherer  of  news  than 
it  is  to-day,  but  its  editorial  pages  exercised  a 
greater  influence  on  public  opinion.  His  father 
was  a  cultivated  scholar;  had  a  fine  literary 
sense;  kept  up  his  Latin;  read  French  and  Ger 
man  easily.  His  mother,  the  son  tells  us,  "was 
the  only  woman  in  Boston  who  could  read  Ger 
man  when  I  was  a  boy,"  by  which  I  understand 
that  he  simply  means  that  she  was  the  only  wo 
man  in  Boston  within  his  acquaintance  who  read 
German.  The  boy  was  born  into  a  literary  at- 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

mosphere,  and  from  early  boyhood  was  used  to 
books,  newspapers,  and  magazines,  and  the 
machinery  of  producing  them.  "All  of  us,"  he 
says,  "were  born  into  a  home  crammed  with 
newspapers,  books,  perfectly  familiar  with  types 
and  ink  and  paper  and  proof-sheets  and  manu 
scripts."  The  children  wrote  and  printed  books 
and  newspapers.  At  one  time  "they  wrote  a 
whole  library.  It  still  exists — the  Franklin 
Circulating  Library — little  booklets  of  perhaps 
three  or  four  inches  square,  in  which  are  printed 
by  hand  youthful  tales  in  many  volumes."  Thus 
the  boy  was  born,  not  with  a  silver  spoon  in  his 
mouth,  but  with  a  pen  in  his  hand,  and  acquired 
the  kind  of  culture  which  can  be  acquired  only 
during  childhood  and  in  a  cultivated  home. 

He  entered  Harvard  College  at  thirteen  years 
of  age,  after  four  years  at  the  Latin  School. 
There  are  no  advantages  without  some  con- 
pensating  disadvantages.  To  an  eager  mind 
accustomed  to  living  among  books  and  getting 
knowledge  by  a  process  as  natural  as  breathing 
the  mechanical  processes  of  the  school  were 
wearisome.  "I  may  as  well  say,"  he  says,  "first 
as  last,  that  school  was  always  a  bore  to  me.  I 
did  not  so  much  hate  it  as  dislike  it  as  a  nec 
essary  nuisance."  Nevertheless,  he  proved  him 
self  a  good  scholar,  both  in  school  and  college. 
He  had  parts  in  the  sophomore,  junior,  and  senior 

103 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

entertainments  and  exhibitions;  won  college 
prizes  for  two  dissertations;  was  one  of  the  first 
eight  in  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa;  and  graduated 
second  in  his  class. 

The  college  in  his  time  was  scarcely  less  me 
chanical  than  the  school.  The  students  learned 
their  lessons  and  recited  them  to  the  professors. 
Young  Hale  got  his  lessons  conscientiously,  but 
found  time  in  addition  to  read  novels,  study  his 
tory,  hunt  for  wild  flowers,  do  philosophical 
experiments,  and  take  an  active  part  in  college 
student  life.  I  am  not  sure  but  that  a  college 
course  which  allowed  such  students  as  Edward 
Everett  Hale  and  Phillips  Brooks  time  for  their 
own  independent  intellectual  activities  would  not 
afford  better  training  than  the  modern  course 
which  fills  the  student's  life  so  full  of  prescribed 
readings  that  he  has  no  time  to  follow  his  own 
literary  inclinations.  Perhaps  the  modern  meth 
od  is  better  for  the  average  boy,  the  older 
method  better  for  the  eager  student.  Those 
pessimists  who  lament  the  tendencies  of  modern 
college  life  might  do  well  to  compare  the  college 
of  1917  with  the  following  experience  of  young 
Hale  in  the  college  of  1837: 

"On  conversing  this  morning  with  those  who  had  been 
present  at  prayers,  I  found  that  there  had  been  consider 
able  noise,  and  that  one  or  two  of  our  class  were  drunk. 
On  going  to  morning  prayers  [they]  found  a  good  many 

104 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

panes  broken  in  University  window.  There  was  a  good  deal 
of  noise  in  Doctor  Ware's  recitation-room.  There  were 
one  or  two  apples  and  a  lemon  which  were  being  thrown 
constantly  from  one  side  of  the  room  to  the  other,  to  the 
imminent  danger  of  the  heads  they  happened  to  be  aimed 
at.  In  the  evening  after  supper  ...  I  heard  a  tre 
mendous  explosion  which  I  thought  was  a  pump  blown 
up  ....  I  found  that  either  this,  or  a  later  ex 
plosion  which  I  did  not  hear,  was  made  by  a  torpedo  put 
on  the  sill  of  one  of  the  windows  of  University."  Ex 
plosions  followed  every  night  for  several  nights,  and  these 
grew  more  serious  as  time  went  on.  Three  months  later, 
"when  we  went  to  prayers  this  morning  we  found  the 
chapel  in  great  confusion,  owing  to  the  explosion  of  a  bomb 
placed  in  front  of  the  pulpit.  The  windows  were  all  broken, 
almost  every  pane  of  glass  being  destroyed,  the  front 
of  the  high  platform  on  which  the  pulpit  stands  was  blown 
in,  the  plastering  broken  in  several  places  where  pieces 
of  the  shell  had  entered,  woodwork  of  pews,  window-panes, 
and  seats  hurt  in  some  places,  the  clock  injured,  part  of  the 
curtain  inside  of  the  pulpit  torn  away,  and  a  couple  of  in 
scriptions  in  immense  letters  on  the  wall  to  this  effect :  'A 
bone  for  old  Quin  to  pick.' ' 

Graduating  at  seventeen  years  of  age,  young 
Hale  decided  to  enter  the  ministry.  His  mother 
especially,  but  also  his  father,  had  always  desired 
him  to  be  a  minister,  and  his  friends  in  college 
had  known  of  his  general  intentions  long  before 
his  graduation.  "He  did  not,  however,  desire 
to  study  in  the  Divinity  School.  Just  why,  is  not 
clear.  Perhaps  it  was  in  part  a  piece  of  his  life- 

105 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

long  objection  doing  anything  in  a  mechanical 
way,  a  feeling  that  made  him  through  life  critical 
of  all  institutional  processes  of  education. "  So 
the  son  interprets  his  father's  motive,  I  think 
correctly.  Doctor  Hale  was  by  temperament  and 
training  an  independent.  He  had  no  inclination 
to  model  himself  after  any  prescribed  pattern, 
and  it  would  have  been  really  impossible  for  him 
to  be  run  into  a  mould.  He  had  to  be  himself. 
He  was  preordained  to  be  the  architect  as  well 
as  the  builder  of  his  own  mind. 

The  motive  that  took  him  into  the  ministry 
was  not  a  profoundly  spiritual  one.  "He  was 
not,"  his  son  says,  "very  deeply  impressed  by 
the  responsibilities  and  opportunities  of  a  minis 
ter's  life."  And  he  says  himself:  "One  prime 
reason  for  the  choice  of  my  profession  was  my 
desire  to  be  in  a  walk  where  I  might  press  my 
general  literature."  His  ambition,  however,  was 
not  merely  a  literary  ambition.  He  chose  the 
ministry  partly  because  it  offered  an  opportunity 
for  a  literary  pursuit,  but  also  partly  because  it 
offered  an  opportunity  to  be  "at  the  same  time 
useful  and  helpful  to  all  kinds  of  persons  who  were 
not  so  fortunately  placed  in  the  world  as  him 
self."  The  first  of  these  motives  may  have  been 
the  earlier  one,  but  the  second  soon  became  and 
always  remained  the  dominating  motive  of  his 
life. 

106 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

The  author  of  Genesis  has  described  in  a  figure 
the  secret  of  man's  double  nature.  He  was  made 
of  earth,  but  into  him  God  breathed  the  breath 
of  his  own  life.  Jesus  used  this  figure  in  a  play 
upon  words  which  I  venture  to  interpret  to  the 
English  reader  by  a  paraphrase:  "The  breath 
of  God  bloweth  where  it  will,  and  thou  hearest 
the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it 
cometh  and  whither  it  goeth;  so  is  every  one  that 
is  born  of  the  breath  of  God."  Doctor  Hale  has 
left  a  record  of  his  experience  of  this  breath  of 
God  upon  his  own  soul.  He  was  in  Albany, 
where  he  had  gone  to  aid  in  an  effort  which  a  few 
were  making  to  establish  a  Unitarian  church  in 
that  city.  It  was  before  his  first  pastorate.  He 
was  about  twenty -two  years  of  age;  he  was  alone, 
a  stranger  in  a  strange  city,  and  doubted  whether 
the  people  of  the  so-called  parish  even  knew  that 
he  was  in  town.  Sixty  years  after,  he  described 
the  experience  which  then  came  to  him  unsought 
but  never  to  be  forgotten : 

Perhaps  it  was  to  this  loneliness  that  I  owe  a  revelation 
which  stands  out  in  my  memories  of  life.  I  had  been  read 
ing  in  my  musty,  dark  bedroom  by  an  airtight  stove.  I 
think  I  was  reading  the  Revue  de  Deux  Mondes.  But  I 
put  the  book  down  for  what  people  used  to  call  reflection, 
and  I  saw  or  perceived  or  felt  that  I  was  not  alone  and 
could  not  be  alone.  This  Present  Power  knows  me  and 
loves  me.  I  know  Him  and  love  Him.  He  is  here,  I  am 

107 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

here.  We  are  together.  And  it  is  a  companionship  much 
closer  than  I  could  have  with  any  human  being  sitting  in 
that  chair. 

The  biographer  thinks  that  his  father  was  a 
believer  in  theological  doctrine.  That  depends 
upon  what  is  meant  by  "theological  doctrine." 
Theology  is  defined  by  the  Century  Dictionary 
as  "The  science  concerned  with  ascertaining, 
classifying,  and  systematizing  all  attainable 
truth  concerning  God  and  his  relation  to  the 
universe."  I  do  not  think  that  Doctor  Hale  ever 
was  interested  in  ascertaining,  classifying,  and 
systematizing  all  attainable  truth  concerning 
God  and  his  relation  to  the  universe.  In  1874, 
replying  to  an  inquirer  who  had  asked  for  some 
books  which  would  explain  to  him  the  Unitarian 
faith,  Doctor  Hale  replied:  "What  I  do  or  do  not 
happen  to  think  about  one  thing  or  another  is 
of  very  little  consequence,  if  only  I  have  the  infi 
nite  help  of  God's  holy  spirit,  which  does  come 
to  any  man  who  believes  God  is,  that  God  loves 
him,  and  is  eager  to  help  him  as  being  indeed  his 
child."  It  was  not  the  organization  of  thought 
but  the  abundance  of  life  that  interested  Doctor 
Hale.  To  this  correspondent  he  said,  "Live 
with  all  your  might,  and  you  will  have  more  life 
with  which  to  live." 

This  consciousness  of  God  was  the  foundation 
of  Doctor  Hale's  character  and  the  inspiration  of 

108 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

his  ministry.  "I  know,"  he  wrote  in  one  of  his 
letters,  "that  that  divine  spirit  which  guides  us 
always,  led  me,  even  in  boyhood,  to  choose  such 
themes,  shall  I  say,  as  the  fit  starting-places  for 
the  duties  of  the  pulpit.  That  perfect  love  casts 
out  fear,  and  that  this  love  must  show  itself  in 
action  and  not  in  word — this  may  be  said  to  be 
a  fair  foundation  for  whatever  the  pulpit  has 
to  say  or  do."  It  is  true  that  Doctor  Hale  was 
always  a  loyal  Unitarian,  and  did  very  much  to 
inspire  modern  Unitarianism.  What  he  meant 
by  Unitarianism  he  made  clear  by  referring  to 
its  origin.  "Unitarians,"  he  said,  "were  first 
so  called  [in  Hungary,  1563]  because  they  be 
lieved  in  the  unity  of  religion  for  all  Christians, 
whatever  their  especial  creed,  whether  Lutheran, 
Calvinist,  or  Socinian."  His  Unitarianism  was 
that  of  Doctor  Martineau,  who  objected  to  the 
title,  and  permitted  it  under  protest.  Not  the 
creed,  but  the  spirit  of  a  church  which  insisted 
that  unity  should  depend  on  the  spirit,  held  both 
of  them  loyal  to  the  Church  in  which  they  were 
born.  They  were  Unitarians  because  they  both 
believed  that  the  unity  of  Christendom  should 
depend  not  on  a  common  creed  but  on  the  unify 
ing  spirit  of  faith,  hope,  and  love. 

But  Doctor  Hale  was  much  more  than  a 
preacher  of  ethical  culture,  much  more  than  a 
social  reformer.  It  is  true,  as  his  son  says,  the 

109 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

father  was  one  of  the  pioneers  in  the  modern  move 
ment  for  social  work;  but  that  work  was  always 
inspired  by  his  faith  in  the  living  God.  "Hos 
pitality,  education,  charity  in  the  life  of  a  church 
are  all  subordinate  to  worship,"  he  said.  This 
spiritual  faith  converted  his  early  desire  to  be 
helpful  into  a  passion  for  helpfulness.  Charles 
Lamb  and  Leigh  Hunt  ceased  to  be  his  models. 
He  enjoyed  literature  as  a  recreation,  but  he 
had  no  interest  in  merely  playing  with  ideas. 
Thought  became  his  instrument.  His  stories 
were  parables.  It  will  be  difficult  to  find  any 
where  a  keener  satire  of  that  specious  internation 
alism  which  repudiates  love  of  one's  own  country 
than  is  furnished  by  "The  Man  Without  a 
Country";  or  a  better  satire  on  the  modern  habit 
of  self-measurement  by  the  mere  quantity  of 
one's  activity,  than  "My  Double  and  How  He 
Undid  Me";  or  a  more  inspiring  interpre 
tation  of  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ  by  service 
and  sacrifice,  rather  than  by  profession,  than 
the  story  "In  His  Name."  The  biographer  tells 
us  that  his  father  regarded  that  as  his  best  story, 
and  I  agree  with  him.  It  is  not  more  popular 
than  "The  Man  Without  a  Country,"  but  it  is 
the  interpretation  of  a  profounder  life. 

Doctor  Hale  was  naturally  an  individualist. 
The  demands  made  upon  him  by  the  needs  of  the 
community  in  his  first  parish,  the  city  of  Wor- 

110 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

cester,  and  the  call  of  his  heavenly  Father  which 
those  needs  interpreted  to  him,  made  him  from 
the  beginning  of  his  pastorate  a  social  worker. 
Long  before  Doctor  Parkhurst  coined  the  phrase, 
"The  church  is  the  minister's  force  not  his  field," 
Doctor  Hale  had  adopted  this  principle.  Neither 
church  nor  pastor  was  concerned  with  spiritual 
experiences  alone.  "Wherever  there  were  those 
who  had  no  one  else  to  stand  by  them  in  their 
social  life — whether  it  were  to  help  them  to  some 
work  that  should  give  them  a  daily  wage  or  to 
offer  them  some  association  and  fellowship  which 
should  make  their  lives  happier  or  more  effective 
—there,  in  his  view,  the  Church  of  the  Unity 
should  be  at  hand  to  counsel  and  help."  His 
first  call  to  Boston,  to  a  church  well  established 
and  a  congregation  made  up  of  older  people,  but 
without  Sunday-school  or  benevolent  institu 
tions,  he  declined.  The  second  call  to  Boston 
won  him  because  the  church  was  largely  made 
up  of  young  people,  energetic,  wide  awake,  eager 
for  work  and  for  someone  to  guide  them.  What 
that  church  became  under  his  organizing  and 
inspiring  ability,  and  what  Doctor  Hale  became 
through  its  influence  as  a  leader  in  every  form 
of  Christian  philanthropy,  are  a  part  of  the 
history  of  the  American  Church. 

I  regard  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  religions 
as  essentially  one  religion,  and  the  Old  Testament 

111 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

and  the  New  Testament  as  essentially  one  book. 
Judaism  is  that  religion  in  the  bud,  Christianity 
is  that  religion  in  the  blossom.  What  Isaiah 
promises,  Jesus  fulfils.  And  this  is  the  only 
world  religion  that  lays  emphasis  on  the  truth 
that  the  way  to  please  the  heavenly  Father  is  to 
work  with  him  for  the  happiness  and  welfare  of 
his  children.  Edward  Everett  Hale's  service 
of  man  was  his  way  of  serving  God;  his  love  of 
God  inspired  his  love  for  his  fellowmen. 

The  difference  between  denominations  is  su 
perficially  a  difference  in  creeds;  it  is  really  a 
difference  in  temperaments.  It  appears  in  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  and  in  the  Apostles 
in  the  New  Testament.  Matthew  has  the  tem 
perament  of  an  historian;  he  represents  histor 
ical  Christianity.  John  has  the  temperament 
of  a  poet;  he  represents  mystical  Christianity. 
Paul  has  the  temperament  of  a  philosopher  who 
is  also  a  poet;  he  represents  doctrinal  Christian 
ity.  James  has  the  temperament  of  a  moralist; 
he  represents  ethical-culture  Christianity.  His 
definition  of  religion  interprets  his  temperament : 
"Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  God  and 
the  Father,  is  this,  To  visit  the  fatherless  and 
widows  in  their  affliction  and  to  keep  himself  un 
spotted  from  the  world." 

Doubtless  Edward  Everett  Hale  believed  in 
historical  Christianity,  in  mystical  Christianity, 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

and  in  doctrinal  Christianity,  but  his  tempera 
ment  led  him  to  put  the  emphasis  of  his  life 
on  practical  Christianity.  He  was  no  agnostic; 
he  did  not  substitute  for  the  service  of  God  the 
service  of  man.  But  his  service  of  man  was  his 
service  of  God.  In  that  respect  he  was  typical 
of  his  age.  The  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries 
were  mystical,  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  were  doctrinal,  the  twentieth  century 
is  practical.  There  is  room  in  the  heart  of  the 
Father  for  all  his  children;  the  time  will  come 
when  there  will  be  room  for  them  all  in  the 
Church. 

Edward  Everett  Hale  was  always  loyal  to  his 
denomination.  He  was  a  Unitarian  partly  be 
cause  he  was  born  and  brought  up  in  a  Unitarian 
home  and  a  Unitarian  church,  partly  because  the 
climate  of  the  Unitarian  church  suited  his  tem 
perament.  But  the  conception  of  God  which 
illuminated  his  life  and  his  writings  were  more 
Christlike  than  the  conception  of  God  which 
darkened  some  of  the  sermons  of  Jonathan 
Edwards,  and  his  conception  of  religion  as  a  life 
of  service  was  more  harmonious  with  the  teach 
ing  of  Christ  than  the  conception  of  religion  as  a 
self-conscious  godliness  which  famous  saints  in 
the  past  have  struggled  to  attain.  He  never 
could  have  written  the  "Confessions  of  Au 
gustine"  or  "John  Woolman's  Journal"  but 

113 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORABIES 

neither  Augustine  nor  John  Woolman  could 
have  written  "In  His  Name,"  or  the  motto 
which  is  perhaps  Doctor  Hale's  greatest  con 
tribution  to  religious  literature:  "Look  up 
not  down,  forward  not  backward,  out  not  in,  and 
lend  a  hand."  I  wonder  whether  he  realized  at 
the  time  that  he  was  simply  translating  into 
modern  phraseology  Paul's  summary  of  Chris 
tian  experience:  "Faith,  hope,  and  charity,  and 
the  greatest  of  these  is  charity."  Whatever  was 
the  occasion  that  led  to  his  writing  of  that  now 
world-famous  motto,  it  is  certain  that  it  was  the 
natural  expression  of  his  own  inner  life. 

He  was  care-free  to  a  fault.  His  loose-fitting 
clothes  indicated  a  wearer  who  cared  more  for 
comfort  than  for  appearance.  To  have  and  to 
hold  did  not  interest  him;  to  be  and  to  do,  did. 
His  eagerness  to  accomplish  gave  his  work  an 
ease  and  spontaneity  which  was  the  secret  of  its 
charm  and  one  of  the  secrets  of  his  power. 
Whether  he  was  writing  an  article  for  a  maga 
zine  or  a  letter  to  a  friend,  whether  he  was 
speaking  to  a  friend  or  addressing  an  audience, 
he  was  essentially  a  conversationalist.  Queen 
Victoria  is  said  to  have  complained  that  Glad 
stone  always  addressed  her  as  though  she  were 
a  public  meeting.  Doctor  Hale  always  ad 
dressed  a  public  meeting  as  though  it  were  a 
friend.  That  he  put  careful  thought  into  his 

114 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

speeches  was  quite  evident,  but  unless  I  am 
much  mistaken  he  put  that  thought  into  what  he 
would  say  and  not  into  the  form  in  which  he  would 
say  it.  Most  New  England  ministers  think  in 
philosophic  terms  and  then  endeavour  to  translate 
their  thoughts  into  the  speech  of  the  common 
people.  Doctor  Hale  thought  in  the  forms  and 
phraseologies  of  the  common  people. 

He  looked  out  not  in.  I  do  not  think  in  all  his 
writings  is  to  be  found  a  piece  of  self-examination 
such  as  characterized  the  writings  of  many  of 
his  Puritan  forbears.  He  was  more  eager  to 
serve  God  than  to  enjoy  him,  and  enjoyed  him 
by  serving  him.  He  neither  practised  nor  ad 
vocated  spiritual  vivisection. 

He  was  not  a  partizan  of  any  party  in  either 
Church  or  State;  nor  the  enlisted  adherent  of  any 
cause.  He  was  not  an  abolitionist,  nor  a  pro 
hibitionist,  nor  a  socialist,  nor  was  he  enrolled 
in  the  ranks  of  their  opponents.  How  catholic 
he  was  as  a  churchman  an  incident  in  my  ex 
perience  illustrates : 

When,  obedient  to  the  command  of  my  doctor, 
I  resigned  in  1898  the  pastorate  of  Plymouth 
Church,  I  was  in  my  sixty-third  year  and  was 
depressed.  My  life  interests  had  always  been 
in  my  work  and  I  thought  my  life  work  was  over. 
It  is  true  that  I  was  still  the  editor  of  the  Out 
look,  but  I  had  visions  of  a  gradual  failure  there 

115 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

also.  Edward  Everett  Hale,  before  yet  I  had 
succeeded  in  getting  my  full  release  from  Ply 
mouth  pulpit,  asked  me  to  preach  for  him  for 
two  successive  Sundays,  and  when  I  declined 
because  of  my  wife's  earnest  request  that  I  take 
a  few  months  of  absolute  vacation  from  all  work, 
Doctor  Hale  renewed  the  invitation,  extending 
the  request  the  following  year  to  four  Sundays. 
Then  I  gladly  accepted.  The  invitation  no  less 
than  the  service  was  a  tonic.  I  have  not  been 
able  to  find  any  record  of  the  sermons  preached, 
but  my  recollection  is  that  I  took  this  opportun 
ity  to  put  before  a  Unitarian  congregation  my 
interpretations  of  The  nature  of  man,  The  nature 
of  Christ,  The  nature  of  sacrifice,  The  nature  of 
the  Bible.  In  doing  so  I  omitted,  as  I  have 
habitually  omitted  throughout  the  fifty  years  of 
my  preaching,  the  much-battered  words  of  con 
troversial  theology,  such  as  Total  Depravity, 
Trinity,  Vicarious  Atonement,  Plenary  Inspira 
tion — words  conspicuously  absent  from  the 
Bible  and  generally  from  devotional  literature. 
This  omission  was  not  due  to  any  concession 
to  Unitarian  feeling,  but  to  the  fact  that  my 
aim  in  my  religious  teaching,  whether  by  voice 
or  pen,  has  never  been  to  advocate  a  theology 
but  always  to  promote  spiritual  life.  Nearly 
twenty  years  of  fairly  active  work  in  the  pulpit 
and  the  press  have  passed  since  then,  and  I  am 

116 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

still  writing  and  preaching,  but  I  can  never  for 
get  the  debt  of  gratitude  I  owe  to  the  minister  of 
another  denomination,  often  counted  a  hostile 
denomination,  for  the  following  letter,  which 
Edward  Everett  Hale  wrote  me  at  the  close  of 
those  four  Sunday  services. 

Jan.  29, 1900,  Roxbury 
Monday  morning. 
DEAR  DR.  ABBOTT  : 

I  shall  stay  at  home  this  morning — so  I  shall  not  see 
you. 

All  the  same  I  want  to  thank  you  again  for  the  four  ser 
mons:  and  to  say  that  I  am  sure  they  will  work  lasting 
good  for  the  congregation. 

More  than  this.  I  think  you  ought  to  think  that  such 
an  opportunity  to  go  from  church  to  church  and  city  to 
city — gives  you  a  certain  opportunity  and  honour — which 
even  in  Plymouth  Pulpit  a  man  does  not  have — and  to 
congregations  such  a  turning  over  the  new  leaf  means  a 
great  deal. 

Did  you  ever  deliver  the  Lectures  on  Preaching  at  New 
Haven?— 

With  Love  always 

Always  yours 
E.  E.  HALE. 

I  have  said  that  Doctor  Hale  was  not  an 
adherent  of  any  cause.  That  sentence  requires 
a  word  of  explanation.  He  was  an  advocate  of 
many  causes  but  he  did  not  belong  to  or  train 
with  any  organized  body  of  reformers. 

117 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

Previous  papers  in  this  book,  especially  the 
sketches  of  President  Hayes  and  General  Arm 
strong,  have  indicated  the  radical  division  in  the 
Republican  party  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War, 
one  section  holding  that  if  the  ballot  followed 
emancipation  the  work  would  be  completed,  the 
other  holding  that  the  ballot  without  education 
would  be  a  peril  not  a  safeguard.  The  attempt 
to  follow  emancipation  with  national  aid  to 
education  after  a  vigorous  and  at  first  hopeful 
struggle,  failed.  Doctor  Hale's  interest  in  that 
attempt,  in  which  Senator  Hoar  was  a  leader,  is 
interpreted  by  himself  in  the  following  letter, 
which  has  an  historical  as  well  as  a  personal  in 
terest  : 


UNITED  STATES  SENATE, 
WASHINGTON 

February  23,  1904. 
DEAR  DR.  ABBOTT  : 

I  have  read  with  great  interest  your  study  of  Mr.  Hoar's 
character.  It  is  an  excellent  review  of  the  book.  If  you 
really  want  to  know  who  killed  the  national  education  plan, 
when  he  was  in  the  House,  I  think  I  can  tell  you.  Dr. 
Gilman  told  me  that  he  thought,  and  they  all  thought  it 
was  going  through.  It  had  the  cooperation  of  some  of 
the  best  southern  men,  of  all  the  northern  men  not  im 
practicable  and  of  the  Cabinet;  when  it  was  savagely  at 
tacked  by  your  friends  of  the  New  York  Nation.  It  seems 
as  if  they  acted  on  the  general  principle  of  attacking  any 
thing  which  seemed  to  promise  well.  Gilman  thinks  that 

118 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

but  for  them  we  should  have  had  for  twenty  years  a 
thorough  system  of  education  at  the  South  supported  by 
the  National  Treasury. 

I  am  to  speak  here  one  of  the  last  days  of  March  at  the 
inauguration  of  the  new  President  of  Howard  University. 
I  believe  I  shall  pronounce  in  favour  of  a  national  endow 
ment  of  a  dozen  such  schools  as  Hampton.  Mead  says, 
and  I  rather  think  he  is  right,  that  the  seven  battleships 
which  they  are  trying  to  make  us  build  this  winter  will 
cost  more  than  all  the  endowments  of  all  the  colleges. 
This  is  so  absurd  that  it  seems  as  if  it  could  be  hindered. 

Truly  and  always  yours 

EDWARD  E.  HALE. 

I  have  quoted  this  letter  in  full  partly  because  it 
indicates  Doctor  Hale's  possession  of  a  quality 
with  which  I  do  not  think  he  is  generally  ac 
credited,  that  of  statesmanship. 

A  great  statesman,  however  wide  and  diverse 
his  interests,  generally  accomplishes  his  result 
and  wins  his  reputation  by  concentrating  his 
life  energies  on  some  one  achievement:  Cavour, 
on  the  unification  of  Italy;  Bismarck,  on  the 
creation  of  Imperial  Germany;  Gladstone,  on 
leading  England  out  from  a  feudalistic  into  a 
democratic  basis;  Abraham  Lincoln,  on  creating 
a  united  and  emancipated  Republic.  Edward 
Everett  Hale  was  not,  and  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  could  not  be,  in  this  specific  sense  a  states 
man.  He  was  a  preacher,  interested,  as  all 
preachers  ought  to  be,  in  men  and  in  whatever 

119 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

concerned  the  men  of  his  time.  But  his  clear 
comprehension  of  our  Reconstruction  Problem 
and  our  Industrial  Problem  showed  him  posses 
sed  of  that  apprehension  of  fundamental  princi 
ples  and  that  prevision  of  future  events  which 
constitute  at  least  two  essentials  of  the  mind  of 
a  statesman. 

In  1895  Mr.  Albert  K.  Smiley  invited  to  his 
hotel  on  the  Shawangunk  Mountain  at  Lake 
Mohonk  a  number  of  gentlemen  and  ladies  to 
what  came  to  be  popularly  but  erroneously  called 
a  "Peace  Conference,"  though  at  every  session 
Mr.  Smiley  laid  emphasis  on  the  fundamental 
fact  that  it  was  not  a  mere  peace  conference  but 
a  conference  to  study  the  problem  how  a  sub 
stitute  could  be  found  for  war  as  a  means  of  se 
curing  international  justice.  The  name  he  gave 
to  the  meeting  was  "  Conference  on  International 
Arbitration."  To  that  question  Doctor  Hale  in 
the  first  session  offered  an  answer  which  has 
since  been  practically  accepted  by  the  world's 
greatest  statesmen.  That  speech  is  one  of  the 
very  few  I  have  heard  in  my  lifetime  which  I 
dare  attempt  to  report,  in  abstract,  without  the 
guidance  of  any  manuscript,  more  than  a  quar 
ter  of  a  century  after  it  was  delivered. 

Arbitration,  said  Doctor  Hale,  is  not  the  rem 
edy.  The  remedy  is  a  permanent  court  of  justice, 
a  supreme  court  of  the  nations  analogous  to  the 

120 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  Arbitrat 
ors  are  selected  after  a  controversy  has  arisen 
and  passions  and  prejudices  are  aroused.  They 
represent  the  two  parties,  generally  with  an  um 
pire  to  hold  the  balance  between  them.  No 
fundamental  principles  are  settled  by  their  de 
cision;  only  the  immediate  question  is  settled, 
and  that  usually  by  a  compromise.  A  perma 
nent  court  exists  before  the  controversy  arises, 
its  existence  tends  to  abate  the  prejudices  and 
passions  which  that  controversy  would  other 
wise  kindle,  it  is  selected  for  the  judicial 
character  and  impartial  spirit  of  its  members, 
its  object  is  not  primarily  to  secure  peace  but  to 
establish  justice,  and  by  its  decision  it  settles 
principles  that  will  prevent  future  disputes  of 
a  similar  character  from  arising.  And  he  pro 
posed  a  plan  for  such  a  court  which,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  does  not  differ  essentially  from  that 
which  Mr.  Elihu  Root  and  his  colleagues  have 
proposed  and  the  European  nations  have  ac 
cepted  for  the  International  Court  which  it  may 
well  be  hoped  will  be  adopted  and  in  session  at 
no  very  distant  date. 

This  speech  was  as  a  lighted  match  applied  to 
dry  wood  ready  to  be  kindled.  In  May,  1896, 
the  Outlook  was  able  to  say  editorially:  "It  is 
considerably  less  than  a  year  since  Edward 
Everett  Hale  made  his  remarkable  address  be- 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

fore  the  Peace  Conference  at  Lake  Mohonk, 
urging  in  lieu  of  International  Arbitration  the 
organization  of  a  permanent  tribunal,  to  which, 
as  of  course,  all  issues  of  civilized  nations  should 
be  referred  for  settlement.  The  idea  seemed 
then,  probably,  to  those  who  heard  him,  that  of 
a  poet,  who  dared  to  present  a  moral  ideal  far  in 
advance  of  his  times,  but  which  a  future  genera 
tion  might  adopt.  To-day  it  is  seriously  taken 
up,  approved,  urged  by  as  wise  and  representa 
tive  an  assembly  of  American  jurists,  statesmen, 
diplomats,  and  educators  as  has  perhaps  ever 
been  brought  together  on  our  continent."  And 
the  Outlook  added  a  report  of  various  notable 
addresses  and  public  meetings  called  without 
concert  in  various  parts  of  the  country  to  urge 
on  Congress  and  on  the  country  this  plan  of  a 
permanent  tribunal,  culminating  in  a  national 
meeting  of  the  first  public  importance  held  that 
month  in  Washington. 

That  from  the  first  a  permanent  tribunal  was 
in  the  thought  of  Doctor  Hale  no  mere  poet's 
dream  is  clear  from  the  following  extract  from  a 
letter  which  he  wrote  me  ten  years  later,  in  1906, 
preceding  the  Second  International  Conference 
at  The  Hague: 

I  am  really  distressed  that  I  cannot  be  at  the  Conference, 
but  I  cannot,  ...  I  wish  that  your  Conference 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

might  simply  consider  itself  as  preparing  for  the  Hague 
Conference — and  that  you  could  rule  out  all  that  did  not 
really  help  that  way.  As  I  have  said  to  Friend  Smiley, 
"Cut  off  the  Frills  and  Feathers." 


Doctor  Hale  was  not  an  international  lawyer, 
but  he  had  a  definite  sense  of  the  value  of  inter 
national  law  and  a  definite  and  evidently  practi 
cable  plan  for  substituting  in  the  settlement  of 
international  disputes  an  appeal  to  reason  for 
the  appeal  to  force,  by  appealing  to  the  judicial 
department  of  government  in  lieu  of  appealing  to 
the  military  department.  In  this  he  was  in  1895 
so  far  in  advance  of  the  age  that  even  yet,  more 
than  quarter  of  a  century  after,  the  statesmen 
have  not  got  his  simple,  and  now  generally  ac 
cepted,  plan  in  working  order.* 

Neither  was  he  a  constitutional  lawyer.  But 
he  had  very  definite  ideas  respecting  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  the  United  States  Constitu 
tion  and  the  rights  and  liberties  both  of  local 
communities  and  of  individuals  which  it  was  in 
tended  to  safeguard.  To  these  ideas  he  gave 
characteristic  expression  in  a  keen  but  good 
humoured  criticism  of  some  of  our  public  teachers 
in  the  press.  He  put  a  high  value  on  personal 


*He  preached  in  1889  at  Washington  a  sermon  in  which  he  foretold  the  creation  of  a 
Permanent  International  Court,  probably  to  be  suggested  by  the  United  States.  See 
"The  Life  and  Letters  of  Edward  Everett  Hale,"  by  Edward  Everett  Hale,  Jr.,  Vol.  II, 
pp.  381,  2. 

123 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

liberty  and  believed  that  the  development  of  the 
capacity  for  self-government  would  require  time 
and  patience  and  was  worth  taking  some  risks 
of  temporary  misadventure.  I  wonder  what  he 
would  say  to-day  to  the  passion  for  power  which 
incites  in  some  reformers  the  desire  to  regulate 
by  law  the  cut  and  length  of  ladies'  dresses  and 
the  height  of  the  heels  of  their  shoes.  The 
passion  for  governing  other  people  is  no  longer 
confined  to  Englishmen,  Scotsmen,  and  Irish 
men: 

UNITED  STATES  SENATE 
WASHINGTON,  D.C. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND  :  Dec.  14,  1904. 

So  many  Englishmen,  Scotchmen,  and  Irishmen  are  en 
gaged  on  our  newspapers  that  editorials  get  printed  in  ab 
solute  ignorance  of  the  Principles  of  the  Government  or 
even  of  Administration.  Godkin,  for  instance,  knows  as 
little  of  the  Constitution  as  I  do  of  the  interior  of  the  For 
eign  Office  at  Ispahan.  I  have  seen  the  Tribune  speak  of 
the  President  as  the  Ruler  of  America. 

Hearst's  paper  spoke  of  the  Nation  as  having  the  original 
Right  to  the  soil  or  coal  of  Pennsylvania.  The  women 
think  that  Congress  can  make  a  Divorce  Law  for  Massa 
chusetts.  I  wish  you  would  make  somebody  write  a  stiff 
article  about  this. 

Always 

EDWARD  E.  HALE. 
To  DR.  LYMAN  ABBOTT. 

124 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 

This  letter  was  dated,  the  reader  will  observe, 
from  Washington.  It  was  written  in  the  eighty- 
seventh  year  of  his  age  while  he  was  fulfilling  his 
last  public  service,  that  of  Chaplain  to  the  United 
States  Senate.  He  kept  his  lively  interest  in 
public  affairs  and  his  boyish  humour  to  the  end. 
He  died  in  June,  1909,  eager  to  the  last.  On 
June  6th  he  wrote  in  his  diary:  "Doctor  Temple 
had  forbidden  my  preaching  to-day.  .  .  . 
The  first  White  Sunday  in  65  years  without  a 
Wliite  Sunday  sermon." 

On  June  10th  he  died. 


125 


JOHN  G.  WHITTIER,  MYSTIC 

WHITTIER,"  says  Mr.  Higginson,  "was 
a  politician  before  he  was  a  reformer." 
In  1832  he  would  probably  have  been 
nominated  for  Congress,  but  had  not  quite 
reached  the  constitutional  age  of  twenty-five 
years  when  the  election  occurred.  He  was 
an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Henry  Clay,  for 
whom  he  wrote  several  spirited  campaign 
poems.  But  when  the  Slavery  issue  arose  he  was 
drawn  into  the  anti-slavery  ranks.  He  at  first 
cooperated  with  Garrison,  but  could  not  agree 
in  either  temper  or  methods  with  that  acidulous 
reformer.  If  not  a  leader,  he  was  a  wise  coun 
sellor  in  the  gradually  developing  party  of  liberty. 
He  unsuccessfully  urged  the  Liberty  party  not 
to  make  a  separate  nomination  for  President  in 
1860.  "Do  not  gratify  your  enemies  by  making 
any  nomination,"  he  wrote  to  Elizur  Wright. 
After  the  Mexican  War  he  urged  his  fellow- 
abolitionists  not  to  oppose  the  admission  of 
Texas  into  the  Union,  but  to  fight  against  its 
admission  as  a  slave  state.  He  was  mobbed  for 
his  anti-slavery  utterances  and  on  one  occasion 
his  life  was  in  serious  peril.  If  his  health  had 

126 


JOHN  G.  WHITTIER 

permitted,  he  might  perhaps  have  been  a  political 
leader  in  those  troublous  times,  for  he  had  prin 
ciples,  courage,  tact,  and  ambition.  But  he  was 
without  means.  "My  brother  and  myself,"  he 
wrote,  "are  almost  constantly  engaged  in  the 
affairs  of  our  small  farm."  And  he  was  without 
health.  In  1830  his  physician  warned  him  that 
he  had  not  a  year  to  live  unless  he  gave  up  his 
political  work.  From  the  storm  and  stress  of 
political  campaigning  he  was  driven  to  quieter 
but  more  enduring  activity  with  his  pen. 

When  I  knew  him,  this  was  all  past  history. 
The  Civil  War  was  over;  the  slave  was  emanci 
pated;  abolition  was  an  accomplished  fact.  If 
my  treacherous  memory  can  be  trusted,  I  first 
met  him  some  time  in  the  'seventies  in  the  hos 
pitable  home  of  Governor  Claflin  of  Massachu 
setts.  I  wonder  if  there  is  any  man  of  wealth  in 
our  time  whose  home  is  dedicated  to  the  uses  to 
which  their  beautiful  home  in  Newtonville  was 
dedicated  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Claflin.  It  was  a 
meeting-place  of  preachers,  authors,  reformers. 
I  lay  down  my  pen  for  a  moment  and  recall  them 
—men  and  women  all  of  whom  have  now  joined 
the  choir  invisible.  Mrs.  Stowe,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  John  B.  Gough,  John  G.  Whittier, 
Charles  Dudley  Warner,  Miss  Sarah  Orne  Je- 
wett,  are  a  few  of  those  in  the  procession  that 
passes  before  me.  Once  I  attended  a  house 

127 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORAKIES 

party  given  by  Mrs.  Claflin  to  a  selected  com 
pany,  parents  and  children,  gathered  from  the 
North  End  of  Boston  for  their  poverty  and  their 
need.  A  gaunt  woman,  one  of  the  guests,  ap 
proached  the  hostess  with  the  question:  "What 
made  you  think  of  doing  this?  Jesus  Christ  told 
you,  didn't  he?"  "Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Claflin, 
"I  guess  he  did."  "I  thought  so,"  was  the  re 
ply,  "I  knew  you  couldn't  have  thought  of  it 
yourself." 

Mrs.  Claflin  in  her  "Personal  Recollections  of 
John  G.  Whittier"  reports  a  conversation  be 
tween  Whittier  and  Emerson  from  which  de 
fenders  of  the  faith  might  well  take  a  lesson  in 
theological  tactics: 

Whitter.    I  suppose  thee  would  admit  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  highest  development  our  world  has  seen. 
£,  Emerson.    Yes,  yes,  but  not  the  highest  it  will  see. 

Whittier.  Does  thee  think  the  world  has  yet  reached 
the  ideals  he  has  set  for  mankind? 

Emerson.    No,  no,  I  think  not. 

Whittier.  Then  is  it  not  the  part  of  wisdom  to  be  con 
tent  with  what  has  been  given  us,  till  we  have  lived  up  to 
that  ideal?  And  when  we  need  something  higher  Infinite 
Wisdom  will  supply  our  needs. 

I  wonder  what  Emerson  replied. 

In  the  summer  of  1878 1  called  on  Mr.  Whittier 
in  his  country  home,  Amesbury,  Massachusetts. 
Had  he  invited  me  when  I  met  him  at  the 

128 


JOHN  G.  WmTTIER 

Claflins?  Or  had  I  a  letter  of  introduction  to 
him?  Or,  being  a  journalist,  had  I  more  enter 
prise  than  modesty?  I  do  not  know.  I  only 
remember  with  what  hospitality  I  was  received 
and  how  gladly  I  accepted  the  invitation  to  stay 
to  dinner.  Of  Amesbury  I  have  no  recollection 
whatever.  Indeed  I  am  not  sure  whether  it  was 
at  Amesbury  I  found  him.  That  was  forty-two 
years  ago,  and  the  picture  I  retain  is  faded.  All 
I  remember  is  a  story -and-a-half  New  England 
cottage  by  the  roadside,  simple  furniture,  a 
simple  meal,  two  middle-aged  ladies  who  were 
apparently  the  joint  housekeepers,  and  the  poet- 
prophet  himself.  He  must  have  then  just  passed 
his  seventieth  year.  No  one  would  call  his  face 
handsome;  it  was  better,  it  was  beautiful.  The 
features  were  homely,  though  the  forehead  was 
high  and  the  eyes  were  luminous.  The  photo 
graph  but  poorly  represents  him.  For  his  face 
was  a  transparency;  the  spirit  within  lighted  it 
up;  and  photographs  rarely,  the  older  photographs 
never,  interpret  the  spirit.  His  illuminated  face 
has  made  quite  real  to  me  the  picture  given  in 
Exodus,  of  Moses  when  he  descended  from  the 
mount  where  he  had  talked  with  God  and  "his 
face  shone."  Whittier's  was  a  shining  face. 

Mr.  Whittier's  friends  have  told  me  that  he 
rarely  talked  about  himself.  I  can  well  believe 
it.  I  do  not  recall  that  he  told  me  anything 

129 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

about  his  early  adventures  as  an  anti-slavery  re 
former.  I  know  that  I  was  surprised  when  long 
after  I  learned  from  his  biographers  of  his  po 
litical  ambitions  and  activities.  But  that  after 
noon  it  was  the  poet  and  prophet,  not  the  re 
former,  whom  I  met;  and  he  talked  freely  with 
me  of  his  religious  experience.  Perhaps  he  real 
ized  that  he  was  talking  to  a  comrade  of  half 
his  years  who  was  eager  to  get  the  light  and  life 
he  had  to  give.  Perhaps  it  was  because  his 
thought  was  not  upon  himself,  but  wholly  upon 
that  light  and  life,  as  was  my  thought  also. 
Why  did  I  not  go  back  to  my  hotel  in  Boston  and 
write  it  all  down  while  it  was  fresh  in  my  recol 
lection?  I  do  not  know,  except  that  I  had  from 
my  early  youth  a  prejudice  against  the  diaries 
and  journals  so  popular  at  that  time  and  never 
have  kept  one  myself,  save  in  occasional  starts, 
soon  abandoned.  Nor  shall  I  attempt  now  to 
recall  that  sacred  conversation.  But  it  led  to 
some  brief  correspondence,  and  that  I  may  put 
before  the  reader  because  in  it  Mr.  Whittier 
will  speak  for  himself. 

Going  back  to  my  editorial  office,  I  presently 
wrote  to  him  asking  him  for  an  article  on  the  Re 
ligion  of  the  Spirit.  The  reader  must  remember 
that  at  that  time  such  books  as  Sabatier's  "Re 
ligion  of  the  Spirit,"  Matheson's  "The  Spiritual 
Experience  of  St.  Paul,"  Hoching's  "God  in 

130 


JOHN  G.  WHITTIER 

Human  Experience,"  were  very  few,  and  such  as 
existed  were  little  known.  In  reply  to  my  re 
quest  I  received  the  following  letter: 

Bearcamp  River  House 
West  Ossipee,  N.  H. 

4th  9  Mo.  1878 
MY  DEAR  FRIEND  : 

I  wish  that  I  could  comply  with  thy  request,  but  the 
state  of  my  health  at  this  time  forbids  it. 

I  entirely  agree  with  thee.  The  only  safe  and  impreg 
nable  position  in  these  days,  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine 
Immanence — the  inward  Guide  and  Teacher.  What 
Fenelon  calls  "the  inexpressible  voice  of  Christ  in  the 
soul."  Believing  and  feeling  this  we  have  nothing  to 
fear  from  the  revelation  of  science  or  the  criticism  which 
assails  the  letter  and  the  creed. 

In  the  Sept.  Atlantic  I  have  endeavored  to  give  ex 
pression  to  the  mystics  of  the  Romish  Church  in  the 
15th  century  who  were  believers  in  a  purely  spiritual  re 
ligion,  independent  of  creed,  ritual  or  even  the  outward 
letter  of  Scripture. 

The  only  real  proof  of  the  inspiration  of  the  sacred  books 
is  that  we  find  the  laws  and  the  prophets  in  our  own  souls, 
— that  our  hearts  burn  within,  as  we  walk  with  Christ 
through  the  New  Testament — that  the  hymns  of  David 
have  been  sung  in  our  own  hearts, — that  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  accords  with  our  intuitions. 

Have  thee  ever  read  Barclay's  Apology  or  Dymond's 
Essays  on  Moral  Philosophy?  The  subject  is  well  treated 
in  them. 

I  am  very  truly, 

thy  friend 
JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 
131 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORAKIES 

The  contribution  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly  to 
which  he  refers  was  "The  Vision  of  Eekhard," 
now  familiar  to  the  readers  of  his  works.  From 
it  I  venture  to  extract  four  verses  because  by 
this  letter  he  makes  it  clear  that  the  vision  of 
Eckhard  is  also  the  vision  of  John  G.  Whittier: 

For  the  dead  Christ,  not  the  living 

Ye  watch  his  empty  grave 
Whose  life  alone  within  you 

Has  power  to  bless  and  save. 

O  blind  ones,  outward  groping 

The  idle  quest  forego; 
Who  listens  to  his  inward  voice 

Alone  of  him  shall  know. 


My  Gerizim  and  Ebal 

Are  in  each  human  soul 
The  still  small  voice  of  blessing 

And  Sinai's  thunder  roll. 

The  Stern  behests  of  duty 

The  doom  books  open  thrown, 

The  heavens  ye  seek,  the  hell  ye  fear 
Are  with  yourselves  alone. 

The  above  letter  from  Mr.  Whittier  was  writ 
ten  as  the  reader  will  see,  in  April,  1878.  In  May, 
1879,  he  wrote  me  again  on  this  subject.  The 
Friends9  Review  had  published  what  was  in- 


JOHN  G.  WHITTIER 

tended  to  be  a  commendation  of  a  religious  ar 
ticle  of  mine  in  the  Christian  Union.  What 
that  article  was  I  do  not  know,  and  I  have  not 
thought  it  worth  while  to  spend  any  time  in  look 
ing  it  up;  for  the  object  of  this  sketch  is  not  to 
define  or  to  defend  my  own  theological  opinions, 
but  to  interpret  the  spiritual  faith  of  Mr.  Whit- 
tier  or  rather  to  give  the  reader  Mr.  Whittier's 
own  interpretation  of  that  faith.  The  paragraph 
in  the  Friends'  Review  to  which  Mr.  Whittier 
refers  and  which  he  had  cut  out  and  sent  to  me 
in  his  letter  was  this.  His  comment  follows  the 
extract : 

Lyman  Abbott  points  out  how  dim  is  the  light  given  to 
men  by  the  Spirit  compared  with  the  full  blaze  of  the  reve- 
lation'of  God  and  of  His  truth  given  in  the  Gospel.  And 
how  the  effect  of  the  light  vouchsafed  to  men  immediately 
begets  a  longing  for  a  personal  Saviour — leads  to  Christ. 

5  Mo  6  1879 

Danvers 
MY  DEAR  FRIEND  : 

I  enclose  to  thee  a  notice  of  the  S.S.  Lesson  in  the  Chris 
tian  Union  on  Job  XXXIII,  14-30  which  appeared  in  the 
Friends'  Review  (a  paper  which  professes  to  advocate 
Friends'  principles) — of  the  12th  ult. 

It  is  evident  that  the  writer  has  greatly  misrepresented 
thy  views,  so  contrary  to  those  expressed  in  some  of  thy 
Editorials.  If  the  light  given  immediately  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  dim,  what  must  that  be  which  comes  to  us  through 
the  medium  of  human  writers  in  an  obsolete  tongue?  Is 

133 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  bible  more  and  better  than  the  Spirit  which  inspired 
it?     Shall  the  stream  deny  the  fountain? 

The  writer  in  the  Review  evidently  has  adandoned  the 
root  principle  of  the  early  Friends  and  really  has  no  re 
liance  upon  anything  but  the  letter. 

Thy  friend 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

In  my  library  there  has  been  accumulated  a 
large  amount  of  material — letters,  pamphlets, 
newspaper  reports  of  sermons  and  lectures,  and 
the  like.  In  this  material  I  have  found  a  sermon 
of  mine  on  "John  G.  Whittier's  Theology," 
preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  in 
1893.  It  is  said  in  this  sermon  that  the  faith 
once  delivered  to  the  saints  is  not  a  creed  or 
form  of  doctrine;  "it  is  always  a  personal  ex 
perience  in  the  heart  of  the  individual"  "a 
seed  planted  which  takes  on  many  forms  and 
many  growths."  I  quote  here  a  few  sentences 
from  an  embodiment  or  expression  of  this  faith 
in  the  biography  of  John  G.  Whittier,  from  which 
I  quoted  more  fully  in  that  sermon:* 

God  is  One;  just,  holy,  merciful,  eternal,  and  almighty, 
Creator,  Father  of  all  things.  Christ  the  same  eternal  One, 
manifested  in  our  Humanity,  and  in  Time;  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  the  same  Christ,  manifested  within  us,  the  Divine 
Teacher,  the  Living  Word,  the  Light  that  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world. 

*I  presume  that  this  expression  of  Whittier's  faith  is  to  be  found  in  the  authorized 
biography  by  Samuel  T.  Rickard,  Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 

134 


JOHN  G.  WHITTIER 

The  Scriptures  are  a  rule,  not  the  rule  of  faith  and  prac 
tice,  which  is  none  other  than  the  living,  omnipresent 
spirit  of  God.  The  Scriptures  are  a  subordinate,  second 
ary,  and  declaratory  rule,  the  reason  of  our  obedience 
to  which  is  mainly  that  we  find  in  them  the  eternal  pre 
cepts  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  declared  and  repeated,  to  which 
our  conscience  bears  witness. 

My  ground  of  hope  for  myself  and  for  humanity  is  in 
that  Divine  fulness  of  love  which  was  manifested  in  the 
life,  teachings,  and  self-sacrifice  of  Christ.  In  the  infinite 
mercy  of  God  so  revealed,  and  not  in  any  work  or  merit  of 
our  nature,  I  humbly  yet  very  hopefully  trust. 

I  am  not  a  Universalist,  for  I  believe  in  the  possibility 
of  the  perpetual  loss  of  the  soul  that  persistently  turns 
away  from  God  in  the  next  life  as  in  this.  But  I  do  be 
lieve  that  the  Divine  love  and  compassion  follow  us  in  all 
worlds,  and  that  the  Heavenly  Father  will  do  the  best  that 
is  possible  for  every  creature  he  has  made.  What  that 
will  be  must  be  left  to  his  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness. 

Writing  this  sketch  as  I  am  approaching  my 
eighty-fifth  birthday,  I  accept  this  admirably 
clear  and  comprehensive  statement  as  an  ade 
quate  expression  of  my  own  spiritual  faith,  de 
veloped  by  over  sixty  years  of  Bible  study  and 
Christian  teachings;  and  I  gratefully  wonder  if 
I  am  not  more  indebted  for  that  faith  to  John  G. 
Whittier's  influence  than  I  have  ever  before 
realized. 


135 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARM 
STRONG,  EDUCATIONAL  PIONEER 

THE  Civil  War  destroyed  the  industrial 
system  of  the  South  and  put  nothing  in 
its  place.  War  never  does  put  anything 
in  the  place  of  what  it  destroys.  It  does  not 
reform;  it  only  prepares  the  way  for  others  to  re 
form.  The  Negroes  set  free  by  emancipation 
gathered  in  extemporized  camps;  white  refugees 
gathered  with  them.  In  such  camps  these  refu 
gees,  outcast  by  the  war,  had  to  be  fed,  clothed, 
and  sheltered  temporarily  while  a  new  labour 
system  was  organized.  The  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  such  organization  seemed  at  the  time 
almost  insuperable. 

The  slave-holding  class  had  an  affection  for 
their  slaves,  but  no  respect.  Their  feeling  has 
been  not  inaptly  compared  to  that  of  a  good 
master  for  a  loyal  dog.  Cotton  was  the  staple 
product  of  the  South,  and  it  was  the  prevailing 
opinion  that  cotton  could  be  raised  only  by  slave 
labour.  That  in  half  a  century  Negroes  would 
be  lawyers,  doctors,  merchants,  bankers,  suc 
cessful  planters,  and  in  increasing  numbers 
landowners,  would  have  seemed  as  preposterous 

136 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  AEMSTRONG 

a  prophecy  as  that  men  would  be  outflying  the 
birds.  Many  in  the  South  believed  that  some 
form  of  serfdom  must  follow  slavery,  temporarily 
if  not  permanently ;  more  were  dazed  by  the  rev 
olution  and  knew  not  what  to  expect  or  what 
to  prepare  for. 

The  North  had  no  affection  for  the  Negro,  was 
glad  that  he  was  in  the  South,  and  hoped  that  he 
would  stay  there.  But  the  inherited  opinion  that 
labour  should  be  free  had  been  converted  by  the 
Civil  War  into  a  passionate  conviction.  That 
emancipation  must  be  followed  by  a  process  of 
industrial  reconstruction  was  realized  by  only  a 
few  leaders.  The  dominating  political  and  eco 
nomic  philosophy  of  the  decade  might  be  stated 
thus: 

The  Negro  is  a  white  man  with  a  black 
skin.  We  have  struck  the  manacles  from  his 
wrist  and  made  him  free.  Let  him  go  where  he 
likes  and  do  what  pleases  him  for  what  wages  he 
can  get.  Give  him  the  ballot  and  he  can  pro 
tect  his  freedom;  give  him  an  education  and  he 
will  use  his  freedom  aright.  Meanwhile,  public 
and  private  charity  may  see  that  he  does  not 
starve,  and  the  beginnings  of  education  can  be 
attempted  by  missionary  and  philanthropic  asso 
ciations.  The  period  of  transition  cannot  be 
very  long. 

But  the  prejudice  against  Negro  education  was 

137 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

not  confined  to  the  South.  "Nigger  teacher" 
was  a  term  of  reproach  in  some  circles  in  the 
North  as  well,  and  one  of  the  early  Freedmen's 
Aid  Societies  "was  rent  asunder  by  the  un 
willingness  of  a  part  of  its  members  to  cooperate 
in  any  movement  looking  toward  the  education 
of  the  Negro,  though  they  were  willing  to  pro 
vide  him  with  food  and  clothing  in  order  to  pre 
vent  suffering  and  death."* 

Something  such  was  the  chaotic  state  of  public 
opinion  when  in  the  winter  of  1866  General  S.  C. 
Armstrong  called  on  General  O.  O.  Howard,  head 
of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  and  asked  for  an  ap 
pointment.  He  was  the  son  of  missionary  par 
ents  in  Hawaii,  a  graduate  of  Williams  College, 
had  received  there  inspirational  training  from 
Mark  Hopkins,  author  of  "The  Law  of  Love  and 
Love  as  a  Law,"  on  graduating  had  entered 
the  Army,  had  received  a  baptism  of  fire  at 
Gettysburg,  and  as  colonel  of  a  Negro  regiment 
had  acquired  a  familiar  acquaintance  with  the 
Negro's  temperament  and  character,  and  had 
earned  promotion  by  his  notable  service  in  the 
Southern  field.  General  Howard  discerned  in 
the  young  brigadier-general  a  kindred  spirit. 
Both  were  brave  soldiers,  both  earnest  Christians, 
both  convinced  believers  in  the  right  of  all  men 


*Special  Report  on  the  Results  of  Emancipation  by  the  American  Freedmen's  Union 
Commission,  1867. 

138 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

of  whatever  race  or  colour  to  be  treated  justly 
and  given  an  opportunity  for  self -development. 
General  Armstrong  never  wore  his  heart  upon 
his  sleeve;  but  no  one  could  be  in  his  presence 
fifteen  minutes  and  not  realize  that  he  had  a 
heart.  General  Howard  put  him  in  charge  of  a 
camp  near  Hampton,  Virginia,  an  appointment 
which  gave  him  control  as  agent  of  the  Freed- 
men's  Bureau  over  ten  counties  in  Virginia  and 
as  Superintendent  of  Schools  over  the  edu 
cational  work  in  a  large,  loosely  defined  area  em 
bracing  those  ten  counties.  His  description  of 
his  charge  is  quoted  here  from  one  of  his  early 
official  reports. 

Coloured  squatters  by  thousands  and  General  Lee's  dis 
banded  soldiers  returning  to  their  families  came  together 
in  my  district  on  hundreds  of  "abandoned"  farms  which 
the  Government  had  seized  and  allowed  the  Freedmen 
to  occupy.  There  was  irritation,  but  both  classes  were 
ready  to  do  the  fair  thing.  It  was  about  a  two-years'  task 
to  settle  matters  by  making  terms  with  the  landowners, 
who  employed  many  labourers  on  their  restored  homes. 
Swarms  went  back  to  the  "old  plantations"  on  passes 
with  thirty  days'  rations. 

There  were  seven  thousand  Negroes  within  a 
radius  of  three  miles  from  General  Armstrong's 
office,  thirty-five  thousand  in  his  district,  and 
eight  thousand  rations  were  distributed  every 
day  to  those  who  but  for  these  rations  would 

139 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

have  died  of  starvation.  By  appeals  to  friends 
in  Boston  he  found  places  of  domestic  service  in 
the  North  for  nearly  [a  thousand  refugees.  In 
October,  1866,  three  months'  notice  having  been 
given,  all  rations  were  stopped  except  for  those 
in  hospitals,  and  he  was  able  subsequently  to  re 
port  that  "trouble  was  expected,  but  there  was 
not  a  ripple  of  it  or  a  complaint  on  that  day." 
He  attributes  this  to  the  spirit  of  the  Negroes. 
"Their  resource  was  surprising.  The  Negro  in 
a  tight  place  is  a  genius."  I  attribute  it  quite 
as  much  to  the  confidence  of  these  children  in 
their  new  care-taker,  a  confidence  which  he  won 
in  a  surprisingly  short  time. 

From  the  first  General  Armstrong  seemed  to 
get,  as  by  inspiration,  a  clear  idea  not  only  of 
what  had  to  be  done  but  how  to  do  it.  Slavery 
had  destroyed  industrial  ambition  in  the  South. 
Work  done  under  compulsion,  whether  from  the 
lash  or  from  hunger,  never  is  and  never  can  be 
inspiring.  To  convert  slave  labour  into  free  labour 
required  a  change  in  the  spiritual  habits  of  the 
Negro.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  said  that  God  had 
given  every  man  one  brain  and  a  pair  of  hands 
and  it  looked  as  though  he  intended  that  brain 
to  control  that  pair  of  hands.  But  this  state 
ment  had  secured  but  little  attention.  There 
were  no  industrial  schools  in  the  United  States, 
North  or  South,  unless  two  or  three  engineering 

140 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

schools  like  the  Troy  Polytechnic  and  the  Stevens 
Institute  may  be  so  regarded.  Providing  in 
dustrial  education  for  the  Negro  met  with  bitter 
opposition.  Southern  aristocrats  thought  that 
any  education  would  spoil  him;  Northern  abo 
litionists  thought  that  industrial  education  dis 
criminated  against  him. 

If  I  had  space,  I  should  devote  it  to  an  ap 
preciative  sketch  of  the  work  which,  immediately 
at  the  close  of  the  war,  various  missionary  so 
cieties  of  the  North  undertook  for  the  education 
of  the  Negroes.  An  army  of  teachers  entered 
the  South  before  the  army  of  soldiers  left  it. 
Hundreds  of  men  and  women,  as  self -de  voted  as 
General  Armstrong,  offered  their  services  for  the 
difficult  and  thankless  task.  Of  the  societies  en 
tering  this  work  the  American  Missionary  As 
sociation  was  one  of  the  first  and  most  important. 
It  was  organized  before  the  Civil  War  because 
neither  the  home  nor  the  foreign  missionary 
societies  would  bear  their  testimony  against 
slavery,  and  when  slavery  was  abolished  it  saw 
in  the  hordes  of  ignorant  Negroes  its  opportunity. 
In  the  beginning  of  his  work  General  Armstrong 
was  dependent  both  for  moral  and  financial  sup 
port  on  this  society.  But  this  sketch  is  a  por 
trait  of  General  Armstrong,  and  must  pass  by 
without  further  mention  the  educational  army 
with  which  he  always  cordially  cooperated. 

141 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

From  the  first  he  saw  clearly  what  not  all  of 
his  contemporaries  saw,  that  it  was  not  enough 
to  transfer  the  New  England  schoolhouse  to 
the  Southern  states.  From  the  first  be  had  an 
almost  unique  vision  of  the  unique  need  of  the 
hour,  and  to  the  realization  of  that  vision  he  and 
his  successor,  Doctor  Frissell,  gave  their  lives 
with  single-hearted  and  untiring  devotion.  Their 
object  I  state  here  in  a  sentence  from  memory 
as  Doctor  Frissell  once  stated  it  to  me.  "The 
object,"  he  said,  though  I  am  not  quoting  his 
words,  "is  to  give  the  Negro  boys  and  girls  what 
the  State  gives  by  the  public  school.  The  public 
school  gives  the  education;  the  family  provides 
the  support  for  the  pupil  while  he  is  studying. 
Hampton  gives  the  education  to  the  pupil;  and  it 
provides  productive  work  which  enables  the  pupil 
to  feed  and  clothe  himself."  The  pupils  were 
paid  for  the  work,  not  in  cash,  but  in  credit  on  the 
books  of  the  school. 

From  the  first  Hampton  Institute  was  a 
Christian  school — Christian,  but  not  anti- Jew 
ish;  Protestant,  but  not  anti-Catholic;  indus 
trial,  but  not  anti-cultural.  From  the  first  also 
it  preserved  Negro  traditions  and  respected  the 
Negro  temperament.  A  satirical  writer  years 
ago  criticized  Christian  missions  in  the  East  as 
an  endeavour  to  make  middle-class  Englishmen 
out  of  native  Hindus.  There  was  no  attempt  at 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

Hampton  to  make  Yankees  out  of  Africans. 
Every  Sunday  evening  the  whole  student  body 
gathered  in  the  chapel  and  spent  half  an  hour 
singing  the  Negro  spirituals,  followed  by  a  brief 
address.  The  custom  is  still  kept  up.  Never 
has  death  seemed  to  me  more  friendly,  or  the 
celestial  world  only  an  "Other  Room"  adjoining 
this  in  God's  great  house,  than  when  I  have  heard 
those  eight  hundred  voices  join  in  singing  "Swing 
Low,  Sweet  Chariot."  From  the  first  the  school 
has  never  officially  recognized  a  difference  in  the 
rights  or  privileges  of  the  races.  Hampton  is  in 
fact  a  Negro  school.  But  there  is  nothing  in  its 
constitution  or  its  charter  to  prevent  white  pupils 
from  being  admitted.  A  large  portion  of  the 
money  granted  to  the  institution  was  given  on 
the  express  condition  that  all  should  be  admitted 
without  condition  as  to  colour,  and  the  charter 
granted  by  a  Virginia  Legislature  in  1870  ac 
cepted  this  condition. 

The  school  was  opened  in  1866  with  fifteen 
pupils;  on  April  26th  it  had  thirty  pupils  doing 
manual  work  in  the  morning  and  studying  in  the 
afternoon  and  evening.  In  1918  I  visited  the 
school.  It  then  had  140  buildings;  1,100  acres 
of  land;  1,802  pupils,  including  those  who  at 
tended  the  summer  school;  2,098  graduates,  be 
sides  7,500  who  had  gone  out  from  Hampton 
after  having  taken  a  partial  course.  With  the 

143 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

exception  of  the  church,  capable  of  seating  about 
fifteen  hundred,  and  the  Robert  C.  Ogden 
Auditorium,  seating  about  twenty-five  hundred, 
and  possibly  two  or  three  cottages,  all  the  build 
ings  have  been  erected  by  the  students  them 
selves  and  all  the  farm  work  and  all  the  household 
work  of  the  school,  including  that  of  an  inn  upon 
the  grounds,  is  done  by  the  pupils. 

What  has  been  called,  I  think  without  exag 
geration,  the  most  efficient  and  capable  indus 
trial  school  in  the  United  States,  if  not  in  the 
world,  is  primarily  due  to  an  extraordinary  corps 
of  co-workers,  dominated  by  the  same  spirit  and 
guided  and  inspired  by  two  leaders  of  singularly 
different  temperament,  but  inspired  by  the  same 
spiritual  ambition — General  S.C.  Armstrong  and 
Dr.  H.  B.  Frissell.  If  life  is  a  campaign,  then 
Armstrong  may  be  compared  to  General  Sheridan 
and  Frissell  to  General  Thomas;  if  life  is  a  gar 
den,  then  Armstrong  selected  the  site,  ploughed 
the  ground,  sowed  the  seed  and  planted  the  seed 
lings,  and  Frissell  weeded,  pruned,  trained  the 
growing  plant,  and  harvested  the  crop;  if  life  is  a 
school,  then  Armstrong  gave  life  to  the  pupils, 
Frissell  discovered  unconscious  life  in  the  pupils 
and  developed  it  in  them.  General  Armstrong 
was  a  pioneer,  Frissell  a  teacher,  Armstrong  a 
creator,  Frissell  an  organizer.  I  wish  I  had  space 
to  essay  a  snapshot  of  them  both,  but  I  must  con- 

144 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

fine  myself  here  to  the  one  selected  to  be  the 
subject  of  this  sketch. 

I  do  not  find  in  his  daughter's  biography  any 
description  of  General  Armstrong's  appearance. 
The  faded  shadow-picture  in  my  memory  is  that 
of  a  young  man,  somewhat  under  six  feet,  of  slim 
build  but  broad  shoulders,  with  no  superfluous 
flesh,  erect  in  pose,  with  keen  eyes  that  looked 
not  at  you  but  into  you,  and  an  electric  energy 
at  once  physical  and  moral. 

I  say  young  man,  for  he  had  up  to  the  last 
the  charm  of  youth.  To  him  every  day  was  a 
new  beginning.  In  every  day  was  the  freshness 
of  interest  which  belongs  to  youth.  He  would 
never  have  passed  the  dead  line  of  fifty,  not  if  he 
had  lived  to  be  a  hundred.  He  lived  in  the  pres 
ent  for  the  future.  I  never  heard  him  talk  of 
the  past,  would  hardly  have  known  that  he  had 
been  a  general  in  our  Civil  War  except  for  the 
soldier's  title  which  fitted  him  so  perfectly  that 
he  could  not  have  laid  it  off  if  he  had  tried.  I 
was  surprised  when  I  began  the  preparation  of 
this  article  to  learn  that  he  was  only  four  years 
my  junior.  I  had  always  thought  of  him  as  a 
much  younger  man.  Years,  infirmity,  failing 
health,  did  nothing  to  abate  his  unquenchable 
humour.  One  day,  after  paralysis  had  laid  him 
aside  from  work  and  his  physician  had  prescribed 
for  him  a  walk  of  a  few  hundred  yards  as  his  only 

145 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

exercise,  he  was  taking  the  prescription  with  his 
intimate  friend,  Robert  C.  Ogden.  They  were 
talking  of  the  Evening  Post,  and  Mr.  Ogden 
asked  General  Armstrong  what  he  thought  of 
its  editor,  Mr.  Godkin.  "I  think,"  said  General 
Armstrong,  "that  he  would  begin  the  Command 
ments  with  'I  am  the  Lord  thy  Godkin,  thou 
shalt  have  no  other  Godkins  before  me." 

He  was  an  electric  battery,  and  in  his  writing, 
his  conversation,  his  speeches  he  scintillated.  He 
was  unconsciously  epigrammatic.  Spontaneous 
epigrams,  always  kindly,  though  often  keen, 
made  him  an  intensely  interesting  conversation 
alist.  When  you  talked  with  him,  you  naturally 
said  only  enough  to  start  him  talking  or  to  keep 
him  going.  From  his  daughter's  biography  I  select 
by  chance  a  few  of  these  spontaneous  epigrams: 

"Laughter  makes  sport  of  work." 

In  a  speech  to  his  students — "Spend  your 
life  in  doing  what  you  can  do  well.  If  a  man  can 
black  boots  better  than  anything  else,  what  had 
he  better  do?  Black  boots." 

After  a  visit  to  some  of  the  missionary  schools 
in  the  South  in  answer  to  the  question,  "What 
was  your  impression?"  "One  sweetly  solemn 
thought  comes  to  me  o'er  and  o'er." 

To  his  students — "Doing  what  can't  be  done 
is  the  glory  of  living." 

To  the  argument  at  Lake  Mohonk  that  a  cer- 
146 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

tain  policy  he  had  proposed  was  impossible — 
"What  are  Christians  put  into  the  world  for  but 
to  do  the  impossible  in  the  strength  of  God?" 

From  letters — "Philanthropy  is  the  thief  of 
time." 

"The  chief  comfort  of  life  is  babies.  Institu 
tions  are  a  grind,  humanity  a  good  deal  of  a 
bore;  causes  are  tiresome;  and  men  of  one  idea 


are  a  weariness." 


"What  you  spend  on  yourself  you  lose;  what 
you  give  you  gain." 

"When  it  comes  to  the  scratch,  I  believe  in  the 
prayers  of  the  unorthodox — why  are  they  not  as 
effectual  as  any?  From  the  deep  human  heart  to 
the  Infinite  Heart  there  is  a  line  along  which  will 
pass  the  real  cry  and  the  sympathetic  answer — 
a  double  flash  from  the  moral  magnetism  that 
fills  the  universe." 

"Human  life  is  too  weak  to  be  an  incessant 
flight  toward  the  Sun  of  Righteousness.  Wings 
will  sometimes  be  folded  because  they  are  wings." 

"God's  kings  and  priests  must  drudge  in  seedy 
clothes  before  they  can  wear  the  purple." 

"To  get  at  truth,  divide  a  hyperbole  by  any 
number  greater  than  two.  ...  In  animated 
narratives  divide  facts  by  ten." 

Such  spontaneous  epigrams  as  these  are  both 
revealers  of  character  and  inspirers  to  life.  A 
"table  talk"  of  General  Armstrong  on  the  plan 

147 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

of  the  "table  talk"  of  Coleridge  and  that  of 
Luther  would  be  a  classic. 

With  this  freshness  of  interest  in  life  was  com 
bined  the  courage  of  youth,  but  not  the  rashness. 
Rashness  leaps  before  it  looks;  courage  looks  be 
fore  it  leaps;  timidity  does  not  leap  at  all.  The 
wise  man  in  asking,  What  shall  I  do?  takes  coun 
sel  of  courage;  in  asking,  How  shall  I  do  it? 
takes  counsel  of  caution.  It  is  because  General 
Armstrong  was  both  inspired  by  courage  and 
guided  by  caution  that  he  won  the  confidence  of 
men  who  had  no  ambition  to  be  pioneers.  He 
wanted  for  his  school  a  building  which  would  cost 
seventy-five  thousand  dollars;  he  had  on  hand 
two  thousand  dollars.  He  used  the  two  thou 
sand  dollars  to  dig  the  cellar  and  lay  foundations, 
and  so  had  a  "mute  appeal"  to  speak  to  the 
visitors  from  the  North  who  came  down  to  lay 
the  corner-stone,  and  it  talked  to  good  purpose. 
The  students  learned  brickmaking  by  making  the 
brick  and  bricklaying  by  building  the  walls,  and 
at  the  end  he  had  made  both  a  building  and  the 
builders.  The  vision  appealed  to  the  idealists,  the 
method  to  practical  men — and  he  got  the  money. 

I  felt  that  by  the  triple  task  that  he  had  set 
himself  he  was  killing  himself.  To  overcome 
race  prejudice  in  the  South,  to  educate  for  useful 
serviceJXTegroes  at  Hampton,  and  to  create  in  the 
North  an  understanding  of  the  problem  and  at 

148 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

the  same  time  the  means  to  carry  the  work  on 
was  too  much  for  any  one  man  to  undertake.  I 
joined  with  other  friends  in  urging  him  to  secure 
a  permanent  endowment  for  Hampton,  and  so 
relieve  himself  from  the  Northern  campaigning. 
"Yes,"  he  replied  in  substance,  "I  would  like 
an  endowment  for  Hampton;  we  need  it.  But 
I  do  not  wish  to  avoid  the  begging  campaign. 
To  educate  the  North  is  as  important  for  the 
Nation  as  to  educate  the  South  and  the  Negro." 
At  the  same  time  that  the  old  Abolition  Society 
was  formally  by  resolution  disbanding  because 
nothing  remained  for  it  to  do,  General  Arm 
strong  was  organizing  his  campaign  to  carry  for 
ward  the  work  which  the  Abolition  Society  had 
only  begun.  "It  failed  to  see,"  said  he,  "that 
everything  remained.  Their  work  was  just 
beginning  when  slavery  was  abolished."  He 
was  right.  No  historian  can  adequately  esti 
mate  the  value  of  the  service  to  our  national 
development  rendered  by  the  campaigns  carried 
on  in  the  North  by  General  Armstrong,  Doctor 
Frissell,  Booker  T.  Washington,  and  the  Chris 
tian  churches.  To  these  campaigns  we  owe  the 
consciousness  that  the  race  problem  is  a  national 
problem,  and  with  that  consciousness  a  better 
mutual  understanding  between  the  North  and 
the  South  and  between  the  white  and  the 
coloured  races. 

149 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

With  this  youthful  interest,  this  cautious  cour 
age,  this  ever-reinvigorated  energy,  was  coupled 
a  spirit  of  humility  which  I  have  not  often  found 
in  men  who  do  things.  He  had  self-confidence, 
but  was  singularly  free  from  self-conceit.  I  had 
written  in  what  was  then  the  Christian  Union 
an  article  about  Hampton,  not  then  known  and 
honoured  as  it  is  to-day,  and  received  from  him 
the  following  characteristic  letter  of  appreci 
ation  : 

Parker  House 

Boston,  December  18,  1884. 
DEAR  DR.  ABBOTT  : 

Thanks  for  your  kind  article  in  the  last  Xian  Union  on 
Hampton. 

It  is  very  cordial  and  earnest  and  will  do  good.  It  is 
not  easy  to  live  up  to  where  you  place  me.  The  true 
prayer  for  a  man  in  a  responsible  position  is — 

Lord,  help  me  to  not  make  an  ass  of  myself.  I  often 
pray  this  fervently.  .  .  . 

Yours  sincerely, 

S.  C.  ARMSTRONG. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  this  was  true.  With  all 
his  seeming  abandon  he  walked  "circumspectly." 
Yet  his  abandon  was  not  a  seeming.  One  of 
his  teachers  tells  me  the  following  incident  illus 
trating  his  habitual  self-forgetfulness.  To  one 
of  the  Hampton  boys  was  assigned  the  care  of 
the  General's  house  and  waiting  on  him  at  his 
meals,  for  the  General  ate  with  the  rest  of  the 

150 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

teachers  in  a  room  in  the  students'  hall.  As  this 
teacher  was  passing  out  from  dinner  the  General 
beckoned  to  her  for  some  consultation  and  was 
immediately  absorbed  in  the  business  in  hand. 
Presently,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  teacher  and  his 
mind  on  their  topic,  he  took  up  the  mustard  pot 
at  his  side  and,  without  turning  his  head,  reached 
it  out  toward  the  waiter.  The  boy  took  it,  for 
a  moment  was  puzzled,  then  smiled,  put  down 
the  mustard  pot,  took  up  the  General's  tea-cup 
and  brought  it  back  refilled,  and  the  General 
took  it  and  went  on  with  his  meal  and  his  con 
versation,  quite  oblivious  of  the  little  comedy  in 
which  he  had  taken  a  part. 

He  did  not  live  in  a  "fool's  paradise."  "Mere 
optimism,"  he  said,  "is  stupid;  sanctified  com 
mon  sense  is  the  force  that  counts."  But 
neither  did  he  live  in  a  fool's  purgatory.  "It 
remains  to  make  the  best  of  things.  Those  who 
are  hopeless  disarm  themselves  and  may  as  well 
go  to  the  rear;  men  and  women  of  faith,  opti 
mists,  to  the  front."  The  cynic  scoffs  at  those  who 
will  not  face  facts;  but  there  is  no  man  who  so 
persistently  refuses  to  face  facts  as  the  cynic. 
General  Armstrong  saw  the  evil  in  men,  but  also 
saw  the  good,  and  instinctively,  and  without 
knowing  it,  gave  life  and  power  to  the  good. 
There  is  no  work  which  seems  to  me  so  discourag 
ing  as  "raising  money"  —the  need  seems  so  im- 

151 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

perative,  the  public  so  apathetic.  General  Arm 
strong  apparently  believed  that  if  you  know  how 
to  strike  the  rock  in  the  desert  you  can  always  get 
water.  "Begging  trips,"  he  called  them,  and  he 
rejoiced  to  escape  from  them  to  the  more  congen 
ial  companionship  of  the  school  at  Hampton,  but 
his  habitual  attitude  toward  the  apathetic  North 
was  one  of  cheer.  "I  never  cease  to  wonder," 
he  wrote  in  one  of  his  reports,  "at  the  patience 
and  kindness  of  those  who  daily  listen  to  appeals 
from  here  [Hampton]  and  some  other  quarters, 
the  wear  and  tear  of  which  can  be  hardly  less 
than  that  of  those  who  solicit  aid  from  these 
overtaxed  givers." 

He  carried  the  same  spirit  into  his  campaign 
appeals  for  teachers  to  give  themselves.  The 
difficulty  of  his  job  appealed  to  him,  and  he  be 
lieved  that  it  would  equally  appeal  to  others. 
Life  was  to  him  what  a  game  is  to  the  chess  player 
—the  more  difficult  the  problem,  the  more  in 
teresting  it  is.  Thus  his  appeals  were  what 
Christ  called  a  fan;  they  separated  the  wheat 
from  the  chaff,  discouraged  the  timid  and  self- 
distrustful,  inspire^  and  attracted  the  courageous 
and  self-denying.  Professor  Peabody  in  his 
story  of  Hampton  quotes  the  following  sum 
mons  from  General  Armstrong  to  Miss  Helen 
W.  Ludlow,  which  he  rightly  calls  "one  of  the 
classic  passages  of  Hampton  literature." 

152 


GENERAL  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

Hampton,  September  27, 1872. 
DEAR  Miss  LUDLOW: 

Five  millions  of  ex-slaves  appeal  to  you.  Will  you 
come?  Please  telegraph  if  you  can. 

There's  work  here  and  brave  souls  are  needed.  If  you 
care  to  sail  into  a  good  hearty  battle  where  there's  no 
scratching  and  pin  sticking  but  great  guns  and  heavy  shot 
only  used,  come  here.  If  you  like  to  lend  a  hand  where 
a  good  cause  is  shorthanded,  come  here. 

We  are  growing  rapidly;  there  is  an  inundation  of  stu 
dents  and  we  need  more  force.  We  want  you  as  teacher. 
"Shall  we  whose  souls  are  lighted?"  etc.  Please  sing 
three  verses  before  you  decide,  and  then  dip  your  pen  in  the 
rays  of  the  morning  light  and  say  to  this  call,  like  the 
gallant  old  Col.  Newcome,  "Adsum." 

Sincerely  yours, 
S.  C.  ARMSTRONG. 

Miss  Ludlow  responded  to  the  bugle  call  "as 
though  called  into  action,"  and  was  in  the  school 
from  1872  until  1910,  some  years  after  the  Gen 
eral's  death. 

My  impression  is  that  General  Armstrong  was 
a  Congregationalist;  but  he  did  not  belong  to  the 
Congregational  denomination;  he  did  not  belong 
even  to  Hampton  Institute.  He  belonged  to  God 
and  to  God's  world.  So  far  as  I  know,  he  never 
talked  about  his  spiritual  experience.  I  find 
in  his  autobiographic  fragments  two  very  sig 
nificant  sentences.  One:  "I  would  rather  min 
ister  than  be  a  minister."  The  other:  "True 

153 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

worship  is  a  gentle,  sensitive,  shrinking  emotion 
that  steals  softly  into  hearts  in  quiet  moments, 
often  in  response  to  some  beautiful  scene;  some 
times  it  comes  to  us  from  the  faithful  true  ones 


near  us." 


Two  favourite  religious  books  of  his  are  said  to 
be  Thomas  a  Kempis's  "Imitation  of  Christ," 
the  most  archaic  and  ecclesiastical  of  devotional 
literature,  and  "Amiel's  Journal,"  the  most 
modern  and  least  ecclesiastical. 

After  his  death  a  memorandum  was  found 
among  his  papers  from  which  I  quote  three 
paragraphs : 

Few  men  have  had  the  chance  that  I  have  had.  I  never 
gave  up  or  sacrificed  anything  in  my  life — have  been, 
seemingly,  guided  in  everything. 

Prayer  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world.  It  keeps  us 
near  to  God — my  own  prayer  has  been  most  weak,  waver 
ing,  inconstant,  yet  has  been  the  best  thing  I  have  ever 
done.  I  think  this  is  universal  truth — what  comfort  is 
there  in  any  but  the  broadest  truth? 

I  am  most  anxious  to  get  a  glimpse  at  the  next  world. 
How  will  it  seem?  Perfectly  fair  and  perfectly  natural, 
no  doubt.  We  ought  not  to  fear  death.  It  is  friendly. 

To  this  glimpse  of  his  inner  life,  the  source  of 
his  charm  and  of  his  power,  no  friend  would  wish 
to  add  anything. 


154 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH, 
HOME  MISSIONARY  PIONEER 

WHEN  the  Salvation  Army  first  made  its 
appearance  in  the  United  States,  I 
shared  the  hostile  prejudices  of  most 
Christian  people.  The  military  organization, 
the  uniforms,  the  cheap  music,  the  street  meet 
ings,  and  the  public  prayers  arrayed  against  the 
Army  my  democratic  principles,  my  Puritan 
tastes,  my  temperamental  reserve.  The  the 
ology  seemed  crude,  the  preaching  emotional, 
the  piety  loud,  exhibitory,  pretentious.  But 
when  a  little  later  I  spent  several  winter  months 
in  England,  I  found  there  the  saloon  keepers  and 
the  gamblers  to  a  man  arrayed  against  the  Army; 
and  the  moralists  and  churchmen  divided  in 
opinion  concerning  it.  The  nai've  confessions 
of  Salvation  lads  and  lassies  uttered  between  the 
drum  beats  in  the  street  had  not  been  convincing 
evidence  of  its  value;  but  the  fact  that  generally 
where  it  went  saloon  habitues  and  drunken 
brawls  decreased  in  number  outweighed  all  criti 
cisms  of  its  offences  against  taste.  And  when 
on  one  of  General  Booth's  visits  to  America, 
I  think  in  1886,  I  was  invited  with  half-a-dozen 

155 


SILHOUETTES  OP  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

other  gentlemen  to  meet  him  at  "breakfast"  I 
gladly  accepted  the  invitation. 

At  this  breakfast  I  found  myself  a  guest  of  an 
Englishman  unmistakably  of  the  so-called  mid 
dle  class,  but  one  who  possessed  in  a  notable 
degree  the  qualities  which  Stormonth's  (Eng- 
ish)  Dictionary  attributes  to  a  gentleman:  "a 
man  in  any  status  of  life  who  is  possessed  of  good 
breeding  and  refined  manners,  strict  integrity 
and  honour,  kindness  of  heart  and  such-like 
qualities."  I  found  in  him,  moreover,  a  man 
singularly  free  from  that  moral  partizanship 
which  is  a  common  defect  in  moral  reformers. 
One  of  his  principal  reasons  for  inviting  the  half- 
dozen  men  who  gathered  about  his  breakfast 
table  to  meet  him  was  that  he  might  get  at  the 
truth  respecting  the  drinking  habits  in  America. 
One  of  his  guests  was  the  editor  of  a  weekly  jour 
nal  of  national  circulation,  one  an  author  whose 
volume  on  American  life  and  manners  had  a  more 
than  national  reputation,  one  a  journalist  whose 
connection  with  the  newspaper  fraternity  gave 
him  special  advantages  for  knowing  the  social 
customs  in  every  section  of  the  country.  And 
it  was  a  noteworthy  circumstance  that  all  agreed 
in  the  testimony  that  there  was  more  drinking 
and  less  drunkenness  in  America  than  there  had 
been  in  our  boyhood. 

The  desire  to  get  at  the  exact  truth  on  a  ques- 
156 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

tion  of  vital  interest,  the  capacity  to  receive  and 
weigh  it,  and  the  ability  to  keep  his  own  counsel 
were  three  characteristics  in  General  Booth 
which  impressed  me  as  preeminent  in  that 
memorable  interview.  His  biography  by  Harold 
Begbie  portrays  a  man  in  his  earlier  years  of  great 
intensity  of  feeling.  To  one  who  criticized  him 
for  going  too  fast  he  replied:  "What  do  you 
mean  ?  I  know  no '  Flying  Dutchman '  or '  Flying 
Scotchman/  or  any  other  kind  of  flying  railway 
train  that  goes  fast  enough  for  me.  Time  is  so 
precious  that  unless  it  can  be  spent  in  sleeping 
or  working,  every  minute  of  it  is  begrudged,  and 
my  feeling  whenever  I  seat  myself  in  a  train  is, 
'Now,  engine  driver,  do  your  best  and  fly  away.' ' 
But  when  I  met  him,  probably  in  1886,  his  natu 
ral  impetuosity  was  tamed  and  harnessed.  The 
impression  he  left  on  me  was  that  of  a  man  of 
great  power,  both  physical  and  spiritual,  but 
power  under  absolute  control. 

This  introduction  seemed  necessary  in  order 
to  inform  the  reader  that  the  following  shadow- 
picture  of  General  Booth,  based  on  Mr.  Harold 
Begbie's  interesting  Life  of  the  General,  is 
sketched  by  one  who  might  perhaps  call  himself 
not  an  unprejudiced  historian  but  a  bi-partizan 
historian,  one  who  is  accustomed  to  measure  all 
religious  movements  not  by  their  conformity  to 
traditions  and  conventions  but  by  their  practi- 

157 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

cal  effect  on  conduct,  and  whose  first  inherited 
prejudices  against  the  Salvation  Army  have  been 
conquered  by  some  study  of  its  fruits  and  some 
acquaintance  with  its  personnel.  Some  of  its 
methods  I  could  never  employ,  most  of  its  work 
I  should  be  incompetent  to  undertake,  to  its 
military  discipline  I  should  find  it  very  difficult 
as  a  member  to  submit,  but  ever  since  that  mem 
orable  interview  with  its  founder  I  have  been, 
whenever  the  opportunity  afforded,  a  hearty  and 
even  enthusiastic  supporter  of  its  beneficent 
work. 

William  Booth  was  born  on  April  12,  1829. 
His  father  was  an  unsuccessful  business  man 
whose  disappointed  ambitions  were  almost 
wholly  materialistic.  The  son  described  him 
significantly  but  irreverently  in  the  sentence: 
"My  father  was  a  Grab,  a  Get."  He  lost  his 
money  and  died  brokenhearted.  His  mother 
was  probably  of  Jewish  origin.  After  her  hus 
band's  death  she  set  up  one  of  those  little  shops 
which  the  traveller  is  almost  sure  to  see  in  any 
English  town  or  village,  perhaps  wondering  how 
the  shopkeeper  gets  enough  out  of  it  to  pay  the 
rent.  The  boy  was  apprenticed  to  a  pawn 
broker  because  his  father  thought  this  business 
would  give  the  son  the  best  chance  to  make 
money;  and  in  the  first  years  of  his  life  he  was 
divided  between  a  commercial  ambition  and  a 

158 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOIH 

spiritual  aspiration.  "The  three  steady  things 
in  his  mind  were,"  says  his  biographer,  "first, 
the  determination  to  get  on  in  the  world;  second, 
the  ambition  to  work  for  political  change;  and 
third,  a  longing  to  right  himself  with  God." 
The  longing  to  right  himself  with  God  was 
strengthened  and  intensified  by  his  attendance 
at  Methodist  meetings,  and  particularly  by  the 
preaching  of  one  evangelist  by  the  name  of 
Caughey,  but  the  origin  of  his  spiritual  restless 
ness  neither  William  Booth  nor  his  biographer 
attempts  to  explain.  "How  I  came,"  says  Mr. 
Booth,  later,  "to  this  notion  of  religion,  when  I 
saw  so  little  of  its  character  manifested  around 
me,  sometimes  puzzles  me."  It  was  not,  how 
ever,  only  his  own  lack  of  religion  that  oppressed 
him.  He  was  made  by  his  business  familiar 
with  poverty  and  was  burdened,  not  merely  by 
the  material  poverty  but  even  more  by  the 
spiritual  poverty  which  was  constantly  before 
him.  He  felt  more  and  more  the  call  of  the 
streets;  more  and  more  he  realized  that  spiritual 
poverty  was  the  real  cause  of  the  wretchedness 
with  which  in  his  business  he  was  continuously 
in  contact;  and  this  restlessness  in  himself  and 
this  realization  of  the  wretchedness  of  others 
about  him  became  at  length  an  irresistible  call 
to  the  ministry. 

At  that  time  in  England,  especially  in  London, 
159 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

humanitarianism  was  regarded  as  the  hobby  of 
a  few  fussy  philanthropists.  Little  concern  was 
shown  by  the  churches  for  the  bodies  of  men. 
There  was  no  system  of  national  education;  no 
idea  of  housing  reform;  no  factory  legislation; 
no  provision  for  poverty  but  the  poorhouse. 
There  were  voices  crying  out,  sometimes  with  pity, 
sometimes  with  indignation,  for  reform — Dickens, 
Lord  Shaftesbury,  Carlyle,  Ruskin,  John  Stuart 
Mill,  Cobden,  and  Bright;  but  none  of  these  had 
the  support  of  the  churches,  and  none  of  them  was 
inspired  by  any  recognized  and  avowed  religious 
motives.  These  reformers  all  addressed  them 
selves  to  the  cultivated  and  comfortable  people 
of  England.  The  voice  which  was  to  compel  the 
attention  of  the  English  people  to  conditions  at 
once  shameful  and  dangerous  came,  curiously 
enough,  from  an  evangelist  whose  education  had 
been  in  the  pawn-shop. 

William  Booth  was  able  afterward  to  fix  on 
the  day  when  this  change  in  his  life  from  the 
pawn-shop  to  the  pulpit  took  place,  a  change 
which  was  to  have  so  extraordinary  an  influence 
on  the  religious  life,  not  only  of  England,  but 
of  the  world.  A  Methodist  minister  offered  him 
financial  support  for  three  months  if  he  would 
devote  himself  to  preaching.  The  youth  ac 
cepted  the  offer,  notified  his  master  of  his  pur 
pose,  packed  his  portmanteau,  and  went  out  to 

160 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

begin  a  new  life.  Three  things,  he  afterward 
wrote,  marked  this  day:  It  was  Good  Friday; 
it  was  his  birthday;  and,  "most  important  of  all, 
was  that  on  that  day  I  fell  over  head  and  ears  in 
love  with  the  precious  woman  who  afterward 
became  my  wife."  Catherine  Mumford  be 
came  not  only  a  devoted  wife  and  an  inspiring 
companion  but  a  wise  counsellor,  and  by  her  wis 
dom  and  devotion  earned  the  title  of  "Mother 
of  the  Salvation  Army."  Mr.  Begbie  character 
izes  her  in  a  few  sentences  as  "an  able,  masterful, 
and  brilliant  young  woman,  who  delighted  in 
table  controversies,  who  was  somewhat  proud 
of  her  logical  adroitness,  and  was  able,  brilliant, 
daring,  and  righteous  to  a  fault;  but  one  doubts 
if  her  heart  at  that  time  had  asserted  its  equal 
partnership  with  her  brain." 

William  Booth,  before  formally  entering  on  the 
ministry,  had  attracted  attention  in  the  Metho 
dist  Church  by  occasional  and  not  infrequent  lay 
preaching,  and  was  from  the  first  a  real  though 
somewhat  rude  and  unconventional  orator,  who 
moved  his  audiences  by  his  profound  conviction, 
his  passionate  faith,  and  his  power  of  dramatic 
interpretation.  His  theology  he  had  imbibed 
from  the  Christian  Church  of  that  epoch. 
"This  earth  occupied  the  central  place  in  the 
stellar  universe;  man,  created  in  perfection,  had 
chosen  sin  and  had  rejected  God;  God,  in  his 

161 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

mercy,  had  visited  and  redeemed  man;  man  had 
it  in  his  power,  every  man,  to  accept  or  to  disdain 
that  redemption;  everlasting  happiness  would 
be  the  lot  of  those  who  accepted,  everlasting 
misery  the  lot  of  those  who  rejected  the  divine 
mercy."  "This  was,"  says  his  biographer, 
"the  absolute  and  indubitable  theology  of  the 
whole  of  Christendom." 

The  preachers  of  that  time  believed  that  they 
believed  it;  but  William  Booth  realized  it,  and 
in  his  preaching  it  was  apparently  simplified  to 
this:  The  human  race  is  in  rebellion  against 
God;  Jesus  Christ  has  come  to  conquer  that  re 
bellion;  Christianity  is  war  against  the  devil  and 
all  his  works;  the  duty  of  every  individual  is  to 
lay  down  the  weapons  of  his  rebellion  and  join  the 
forces  of  Christ;  and  the  duty  of  the  preacher  is 
to  call  for  recruits.  This  with  William  Booth  was 
not  a  theological  opinion,  but  from  the  first  a 
vivid  experience.  He  believed  that  this  war  was 
going  on  in  his  own  soul,  that  it  was  going  on  in 
the  souls  of  all  men,  and  that  this  revolt  against 
God  was  the  cause  of  the  poverty,  the  wretched 
ness,  the  degradation,  and  the  sin  which  were  at 
once  the  shame  and  the  peril  of  England.  I 
cannot  see  from  his  biography  that  he  ever 
preached  what  would  ordinarily  be  called  the 
ological  sermons — sermons  the  object  of  which 
was  to  prove  or  to  define  the  Trinity  or  the 

162 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

divinity  of  Christ  or  the  vicarious  atonement 
or  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible.  Theological 
theories  did  not  interest  him.  What  he  sought 
after  was  the  rescue  of  human  life  from  the 
degradation  and  misery  which  were  the  results 
of  the  revolt  against  God  and  the  rejection  of 
God's  law  and  God's  love. 

This  applied  Christianity  he  pressed  home 
upon  audiences  with  passionate  earnestness  and 
with  dramatic  power.  His  biographer  quotes 
an  account  which  General  Booth  has  given  of 
one  of  his  earliest  sermons: 

I  described  a  wreck  on  the  ocean,  with  the  affrighted 
people  clinging  to  the  masts  between  life  and  death,  waving 
a  flag  of  distress  to  those  on  shore,  and,  in  response,  the 
lifeboat  going  off  to  the  rescue.  ...  I  reminded  my 
hearers  that  they  had  suffered  shipwreck  on  the  ocean  of 
time  through  their  sins  and  rebellion;  that  they  were  sink 
ing  down  to  destruction,  but  that  if  they  would  only  hoist 
the  signal  of  distress  Jesus  Christ  would  send  off  the  life 
boat  to  their  rescue.  Then,  jumping  on  the  seat  at  the 
back  of  the  pulpit,  I  waved  my  pocket  handkerchief  round 
and  round  my  head  to  represent  the  signal  of  distress  I 
wanted  them  to  hoist. 

One  reads  this  account  without  a  thrill,  per 
haps  even  with  amusement;  but  if  the  reader 
had  been  one  of  an  emotionl  audience  under  the 
spell  of  this  orator's  passionate  faith  and  believed 
that  this  grotesque  act  was  the  natural  expres- 

163 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

sion  of  the  orator's  genuine  feeling,  it  would  not 
seem  to  him  grotesque. 

Crowds  flocked  to  hear  this  new  preacher. 
The  Methodist  chapels  would  not  hold  them. 
Scores  crowded  to  the  altar  to  seek  for  prayers 
or  to  confess  themselves  converted.  Young 
Booth  went  to  London  to  pursue  some  studies 
better  to  fit  himself  for  his  life-work,  but  the  call 
of  the  congregations  followed  him  and  proved 
irresistible.  Doubtless  the  peculiar  fascination 
of  an  audience  for  a  born  orator  attracted  him; 
but  far  greater  was  the  impelling  power  of  the 
young  preacher's  faith  that  really  the  world  of 
men  were  doomed  to  perish  in  an  endless  con 
flagration  unless  they  were  rescued  by  the  in 
stant  and  energetic  efforts  of  individuals  who 
had  been  already  rescued.  Inspired  by  that 
faith,  he  could  not  refuse  to  respond  to  calls 
which  came  to  him  from  many  quarters.  To 
the  woman  who  was  about  to  become  his  wife 
he  writes  of  his  reception  in  Lincolnshire:  "My 
reception  has  been  exceedingly  pleasing.  Even 
the  children  laugh  and  dance  and  sing  at  my  com 
ing,  and  eyes  sparkle  and  tongues  falter  in  utter 
ing  my  welcome.  Yesterday  I  had  heavy  work. 
Chapel  crowded.  Enthusiasm  ran  very  high. 
Feeling  overpowering,  and  yet  not  the  crash  we 
expected.  My  prospects  for  usefulness  seem  un 
bounded.  But  God  knows  best,  and  where  He 

164 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

wants  me,  there  He  can  send  me."  And  again: 
"Yesterday  I  preached  to  crowded  congre 
gations,  and  we  had  a  crushing  prayer  meeting. 
Some  splendid  cases." 

But  his  sermons  were  not  merely  dramatic, 
they  were  apparently  well  thought  out.  He 
thanks  Catherine  Mumford  for  an  outline  that 
she  sends  him  and  asks  for  more:  "I  want  a  ser 
mon  on  the  Flood,  one  on  Jonah,  and  one  on  the 
Judgment.  Send  me  some  bare  thoughts;  some 
clear,  startling  outlines.  Nothing  moves  the 
people  like  the  terrific.  They  must  have  hell- 
fire  flashed  before  their  faces,  or  they  will  not 
move.  Last  night  I  preached  a  sermon  on 
'Christ  weeping  over  sinners',  and  only  one  came 
forward,  although  several  confessed  to  much 
holy  feeling  and  influence.  When  I  preached 
about  the  harvest  and  the  wicked  being  turned 
away,  numbers  came.  We  must  have  that  kind 
of  truth  which  will  move  sinners."  In  this  re 
quest  he  indicates  what  was  always  the  purpose 
of  his  preaching.  It  was  not  to  instruct  men  in  the 
truth.  It  was  to  move  them  to  instant  decision. 

Pages  of  Mr.  Begbie's  Biography  of  General 
Booth  are  taken  up  in  describing  the  problems 
the  young  preacher  met,  the  difficulties  he  en 
countered,  and  the  courage  and  energy  with 
which  he  encountered  them.  He  was  always 
subject  to  what  would  now  probably  be  called 

165 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

nervous  dyspepsia.  He  married  a  wife  who  was 
always  an  invalid,  and  he  divided  his  time  un 
evenly  between  nursing  her  and  ministering  to 
the  public.  He  was  too  independent  to  submit  to 
ecclesiastical  authority  which  endeavoured  to 
curb  his  impatient  spirit,  or  to  accept  money  on 
conditions  which  required  from  him  submission 
to  any  kind  of  authority.  At  one  time,  later  in 
his  ministry,  money  and,  the  author  thinks,  prob 
ably  a  fine  hall  in  East  London  at  a  cost  of  some 
thing  like  7,000  pounds,  were  offered  to  General 
Booth,  together  with  a  generous  settlement  upon 
both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Booth  if  he  would  consent  to 
settle  permanently  in  East  London  and  not  roam 
about;  and  the  offer  was  promptly  declined. 

No  man  can  enter  upon  such  an  undertaking 
as  that  of  General  Booth  in  such  a  spirit  as 
his  without  awakening  strong  opposition.  The 
greatness  of  his  spiritual  ambition  appalled  some, 
the  intensity  of  his  faith  rebuked  others;  some 
of  his  methods  provoked  not  unreasonable  criti 
cism;  the  very  greatness  of  his  popular  successes 
excited  jealousy  in  his  contemporaries.  Greater 
than  any  of  these  obstacles,  perhaps  greater  than 
all  combined,  was  the  coldness  of  the  churches 
and  the  hardness  of  the  world.  "If,"  says  Mrs. 
Booth,  writing  to  her  mother,  "the  present  effort 
disappoints  us,  I  shall  feel  quite  tired  of  tugging 
with  the  churches  and  shall  insist  on  William 

166 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

taking  a  hall  or  theatre  somewhere.  I  believe 
the  Lord  will  thrust  him  into  that  sphere  yet. 
We  can't  get  at  the  masses  in  the  chapels." 
At  one  time  he  thought  sincerely  of  uniting  with 
the  Congregational  churches  for  the  sake  of  the 
larger  liberty  which  the  Congregational  policy 
would  give  him.  But  the  theology  of  the  Con 
gregationalism  at  that  time  was  Calvinism,  and 
the  Calvinistic  theology  held  that  man  could 
not  repent  without  the  special  grace  of  God.  Its 
honest  acceptance  would  have  required  a  fun 
damental  reconstruction  of  William  Booth's 
message.  When  in  reading  a  theological  treatise, 
which  a  Congregational  minister  lent  to  him,  he 
reached  this  conclusion,  he  threw  the  obnoxious 
book  to  the  other  side  of  the  room,  and  never 
after  considered  the  proposal  to  accept  a  theo 
logical  servitude  in  order  to  escape  an  ecclesias 
tical  servitude. 

WTien  the  Methodist  Conference  decided  to 
recall  him  from  the  work  of  an  evangelist  and 
assign  him  to  a  circuit,  he  left  the  Methodist 
Church,  went  to  London,  and  started  there  the 
"Christian  Mission."  It  appears  to  have  been 
a  purely  individualistic  enterprise;  where  the 
funds  came  from  is  not  clear.  Out  of  this 
Christian  Mission,  which  continued  its  work  in 
London  for  a  year  or  two,  grew,  by  a  natural 
process,  the  Salvation  Army. 

167 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

Having  once  laid  off  the  harness  of  the  Church 
William  Booth  never  took  it  on  again.  At  one 
time  prominent  dignitaries  in  the  Episcopal 
Church  desired  to  make  an  alliance  with  the 
Salvation  Army,  so  that  it  would  become,  if  not  a 
branch,  at  least  a  recognized  instrument,  of  the 
Church  of  England.  But  this  would  have  re 
quired  a  tacit,  or  at  least  an  apparent,  recognition 
of  the  principle  that  acceptance  of  the  two  his 
toric  creeds  of  Christendom  and  the  two  sacra 
ments,  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper,  were 
necessary  to  complete  acceptance  of  Christian 
ity.*  To  this  General  Booth  would  not  consent. 
Many,  probably  most,  of  the  crowd  were  gath 
ered  from  the  slums.  To  them  the  sacraments 
were  obstacles,  not  aids,  to  the  Christian  life. 
Mr.  Booth's  attitude  toward  the  sacraments 
was  the  attitude  of  Paul  toward  circumcision: 
neither  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  nor  the 
absence  of  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  prof- 
iteth  anything,  but  a  new  creature  in  Christ 
Jesus.  Though  Mr.  Booth  had  been  baptized 
and  doubtless  had  often  partaken  of  the  Lord's 
Supper,  his  study  of  the  Bible  convinced  him 
that  neither  Baptism  nor  the  Lord's  Supper  was 
required  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  he  would  not  re- 

*In  1833  the  High  Church  party  in  the  Church  of  England  had  agreed  upon  the  state 
ment  "  that  the  only  way  of  salvation  is  the  partaking  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  our  sacri 
ficed  Redeemer,  that  the  means  of  this  is  the  Holy  Sacrament  of  His  Supper,  and  the  se 
curity  for  the  due  application  of  this  is  the  Apostolical  commission."  See  "John  Keble: 
A  Biography,"  by  Walter  Loch,  M.A. 

168 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

quire  them  of  his  converts,  although  he  cordially 
assented  to  their  voluntary  use  by  those  who 
desired  them. 

But  neither  did  kneeling  for  prayer  and 
professed  Christian  conversion  satisfy  him.  He 
wanted  to  see  a  changed  life,  and  often  he 
did  see  a  changed  life.  Gradually  experience 
drove  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  only  way 
in  which  he  could  lastingly  change  men  and 
women  was  to  make  them  from  the  moment  of 
their  conversion  seekers  and  savers  of  the  lost. 
From  almost  the  birth  of  the  Salvation  Army 
its  two  fundamental  principles  were:  Work 
with  men  if  you  would  work  for  them,  and  work 
to  make  them  Christian  workers. 

Mr.  Booth  had  been  in  London  over  twenty 
years  before  the  Christian  Mission  took  on  the 
name  of  Salvation  Army  and  adopted  sub 
stantially  an  army  organization  and  General 
Booth  assumed  the  title  and  the  powers  of  a 
commander-in-chief .  For  ten  years  more  it  re 
mained  largely  a  recruiting  organization,  though 
carrying  on  important  philanthropic  work. 
Then  the  philanthropic  work  received  a  new  im 
pulse  and  a  new  importance. 

Late  one  night  in  the  year  1888  William  Booth, 
returning  to  London  from  a  campaign  in  the  south 
of  England,  crossed  one  of  the  bridges  on  the 
Thames,  and  was  thunderstruck  to  find  sleeping 

169 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

there  men  and  women  in  huddled  forms  on  the 
stone  benches.  In  the  morning  he  greeted 
Bramwell,  his  oldest  son,  who  had  become  his 
chief-of-staff  and  his  understudy,  with  an  im 
perious  demand  that  something  be  done.  "Do 
something,  Bramwell,"  he  cried,  "do  something. 
Get  a  shed  for  them,  anything  will  be  better  than 
nothing;  a  roof  over  their  heads,  walls  around 
their  bodies."  Almost  simultaneously  sentence 
of  death  from  cancer  was  pronounced  upon  Mrs. 
Booth  by  the  doctors  after  a  careful  consultation. 
Watching  at  the  bedside  of  his  dying  wife,  while 
the  shelter-  and  food-depots  which  he  had  set 
up  were  inadequately  meeting  the  demand  of 
outcast  humanity,  he  wrote  what  was  to  prove 
an  epoch-making  book,  "In  Darkest  England." 
Upon  its  publication  in  1890  I  wrote  in  what  was 
then  the  Christian  Union  that  "the  essential 
principle  of  this  volume  lies  at  the  foundation 
of  any  effective  and  far-reaching  philanthropy; 
this,  namely,  to  use  the  waste  of  modern  civili 
zation  in  providing  for  the  men  and  women  whom 
modern  civilization  wastes." 

By  this  volume  William  Booth  knocked  at  the 
door  of  rich,  comfortable,  and  complacent  Eng 
land,  and  pointed  her  to  the  beggar  who  lay  at 
her  threshold  uncared  for.  The  publication  was 
the  sensation  of  the  hour.  Its  author  met  with 
a  storm  of  abuse.  He  was  declared  to  be  un- 

170 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

truthful,  an  exaggerator,  an  alarmist,  a  vision 
ary,  impracticable,  demanding  the  impossible, 
seeking  to  cure  the  incurable,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  was  denounced  by  Single-Taxers  and 
Socialists  for  seeking  only  to  alleviate  what  so 
ciety  ought  to  cure.  He  was  even  accused  of 
being  an  ambitious  self-seeker  aiming  to  create 
an  organization  of  which  he  would  be  the  head 
and  which  would  be  dangerous  to  the  State,  a 
covetous  self-seeker  aiming  to  secure  vast  sums 
of  money  of  which  he  could  have  the  absolute 
control.  Most  important,  or  at  least  most  promi 
nent,  among  these  accusers  was  Mr.  Huxley, 
whose  extraordinary  charges  the  curious  reader 
can  find  to-day  in  one  of  the  volumes  of  his 
Essays. 

The  charges  of  Mr.  Huxley  against  the  Sal 
vation  Army  may  be  briefly  stated  in  two  sen 
tences:  First,  that  it  is  a  military  organization 
in  which  "everyone  has  taken  service  on  the 
express  condition  that  he  or  she  will  obey  without 
question  or  gainsaying  the  orders  from  head 
quarters";  second,  that  "the  process  of  degra 
dation  of  the  organization  into  a  mere  fanatical 
intolerance  and  personal  ambition,  which  I  de 
clared  was  inevitable,  has  already  set  in  and  is 
making  rapid  progress." 

The  first  criticism  assumes  that  Christians 
may  never  unite  in  a  military  organization  in 

171 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

order  more  effectively  to  fight  organized  evil. 
That  is  a  proposition  which  I  hold  to  be  entirely 
untenable.  The  Salvation  Army  is  not  a  church ; 
General  Booth  made  this  very  clear:  "I  do  not 
want  to  found  a  sect,"  he  said.  It  is  an  in 
strument  which  offers  itself  to  the  churches  to 
carry  on  certain  aspects  of  their  work  for  which 
their  organization  does  not  adapt  them.  If  a 
free  state  may  have  an  army  to  protect  the  legal 
rights  of  its  citizens,  the  churches  may  have  an 
army  to  resist  the  subtler  but  equally  dangerous 
attacks  against  the  innocent  and  the  ignorant  by 
forces  of  evil  which  a  state  has  not  made  illegal  and 
perhaps  cannot  make  illegal.  The  Church  is  not 
merely  a  worshipping  and  teaching  organization ; 
it  is  also  a  working  and  at  times  ought  to  become 
a  fighting  organization.  The  cross  is  in  some 
places  a  summons  to  war,  and  in  no  place  more 
so  than  in  the  great  cities  in  our  civilized  States. 
A  liquor  saloon  in  London  was  carried  on  for 
the  purpose  of  coining  money  by  creating  beasts 
out  of  men.  Mr.  Booth  raised  the  necessary 
money,  partly  out  of  contributions  by  the  poor, 
bought  the  saloon  and  turned  it  into  a  Salvation 
Army  hall.  No  sooner  had  the  conversion  been 
made  than  such  a  storm  broke  upon  him  as  we 
in  these  days  can  scarcely  imagine.  "  Hooting 
mobs  besieged  the  place  by  day  and  by  night, 
the  worst  pimps  and  crimps  of  London  stoned  it; 

172 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

drunken  and  savage  gangs  armed  with  sticks 
and  stones  assailed  it;  for  some  months  the  place 
had  to  be  guarded  by  police,  on  many  occasions 
with  drawn  truncheons.  William  Booth  was 
many  times  in  grave  danger  of  his  life." 

A  body  of  Christian  men  and  women  form  a 
league  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  purity,  tem 
perance,  and  honesty  in  a  community  where  law 
has  allowed  such  conditions  to  grow  up.  The  ob 
ject  of  the  league  is  not  merely  to  control  these 
conditions;  it  is  to  abolish  them.  Have  they  a 
right  to  organize  a  society  on  military  principles 
and  give  to  the  leader  the  authority  of  a  corn- 
man  der-in -chief  ?  To  that  question  who  will  not 
reply  "Yes!"  And  such  conditions,  though  in 
less  aggravated  form,  are  to  be  found  in  every 
great  city  in  the  civilized  world.  To  conduct  a 
successful  campaign  against  them  may  well  be 
thought  to  require  an  army.  Those  who  think  so 
and  have  enlisted  in  a  campaign  whose  most  war 
like  implements  are  a  drum  and  a  fife,  deserve  our 
whole-hearted  support,  not  our  cynical  hostility. 

Mr.  Huxley's  second  criticism — that  the  proc 
ess  of  degradation  of  the  organization  into  a 
mere  engine  of  fanatical  intolerance  and  personal 
ambition — received  its  answer  from  the  "jury  of 
the  vicinage"  in  William  Booth's  lifetime.  The 
violent  campaign  of  abuse  which  even  Mr.  Hux 
ley's  honoured  name  was  unable  to  make  re- 

173 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

spectable,  burned  itself  out  in  less  than  a  score  of 
years. 

A  committee  of  prominent  Englishmen  in 
vestigated  the  administration  of  the  "Darkest 
England  Funds,"  gathered  and  administered 
for  the  conduct  of  its  campaign  by  the  Salva 
tion  Army,  and  after  thorough  examination  re 
ported  in  detail  the  careful,  thorough,  and  ade 
quate  provisions  which  had  been  made  against 
any  misappropriation  of  money.  Since  the  last 
edition  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  an 
nounces  that  "the  opposition  and  ridicule  with 
which  Booth's  work  was  for  many  years  received 
gave  way,  toward  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  to  very  widespread  sympathy  as  his  genius 
and  its  results  were  more  fully  realized,"  I  do  not 
think  it  necessary  to  give  any  further  atten 
tion  to  this  transient,  heated,  and  sometimes  vio 
lent  campaign  of  calumnity.  It  burned  itself 
out  in  less  then  a  score  of  years. 

General  Booth's  history  of  the  conditions  in 
England  and  of  the  Army's  campaign  against 
them,  entitled  "In  Darkest  England,"  was  pub 
lished  in  1890.  In  1905,  fifteen  years  later,  the 
Freedom  of  the  City  of  London  was  presented  to 
General  Booth,  together  with  a  subscription  of 
one  hundred  guineas  to  the  funds  of  the  Sal 
vation  Army,  and  he  lunched  with  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  a  select  company.  It  was  character- 

174 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

istic  of  the  man  to  take  advantage  of  this  oc 
casion  to  make  a  plea,  not  for  himself  nor  for  the 
Army,  but,  to  use  his  own  words,  "for  the  drunk 
ard,  the  harlot,  the  criminal,  the  pauper,  the 
friendless,  the  giddy,  dancing,  frivolous  throngs." 
A  little  later  he  was  asked  to  be  a  vice-president 
of  the  Bible  Society  and  was  given  the  degree  of 
D.C.L.  by  the  University  of  Oxford.  His  visits 
to  America  during  these  later  years  of  his  life 
were  an  ovation.  At  the  request  of  royalties 
he  had  interviews  with  the  sovereigns  of  Den 
mark,  Norway,  and  Sweden,  the  Emperor  of 
Japan,  Queen  Alexandra,  the  Dowager,  Empress 
of  Russia,  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales  in 
England.  I  imagine  that  of  all  these  recep 
tions  and  testimonials  two  must  have  preemi 
nently  impressed  him:  One,  a  letter  from  the 
well-known  skeptic  Goldwin  Smith,  who  wrote, 
"It  is  a  signal  testimony  to  the  spiritual  power 
of  the  founder  of  Christendom  that  so  many 
centuries  after  His  death  such  a  work  should  be 
done  under  His  inspiration  and  in  His  name"; 
the  other,  the  popular  reception  given  to  him  at 
Japan,  a  feature  of  which  was  two  prayer  meet 
ings  in  which  no  less  than  five  hundred  people 
came  on  to  the  stage,  seeking  with  cries  and 
tears  the  salvation  of  God. 

To  the  end  of  his  life  General  Booth  con 
tinued  a  profoundly  religious  man.     He  lived 

175 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

and  died  believing  that  the  salvation  of  society 
depended  on  the  salvation  of  the  individuals  of 
whom  society  is  composed,  that  men  would 
never  be  brought  into  right  relations  with  each 
other  unless  they  were  first  brought  into  right 
relations  with  God.  But  as  he  grew  older  his 
creed  became  simpler.  In  his  speech  to  the  Lord 
Mayor  of  London,  delivered  in  1905,  when  he 
received  the  Freedom  of  the  City  of  London,  he 
defined,  not  indeed  the  creed,  but  the  religion  of 
the  Salvation  Army  in  terms  which  not  all  Chris 
tian  believers  would  regard  as  adequate  but  to 
which  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  any  Christian 
believers  could  object  as  erroneous : 

The  religion  of  the  Salvation  Army  is  very  simple;  any 
one  can  understand  it.  It  says  to  a  man:  "You  must 
worship  God,  consecrate  yourself  to  his  service,  and  do 
what  you  can  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  around  you. 
You  must  be  good  and  true  and  honest  and  kind  and  do  all 
you  can  for  the  benefit  of  your  family  and  friends.  You 
must  persevere  as  the  days  go  by,  and  so  shall  you  have  a 
peaceful  dying-bed  and  a  blissful  immortality." 

Having  exerted  perhaps  as  wide  an  influence 
on  the  religious  thought  and  life  of  the  world  as 
any  man  in  his  time,  he  died  in  England  in  the 
eighty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  honoured  by  his 
country,  revered  by  his  followers,  and  beloved  by 
his  friends.  There  might  well  be  inscribed  upon 
his  tombstone  as  the  motive  of  his  life  the  words : 
"A  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners." 

176 


DANIEL    BLISS,  FOREIGN    MISSIONARY 
PIONEER 

I  LAST  saw  him  probably  seven  or  eight  years 
ago.  He  had  passed  his  eighty-fifth  birth 
day  and  was  about  returning  to  his  home  in 
Syria.  He  had  been  a  missionary  in  that  land 
for  more  than  half  a  century,  and  for  thirty-six 
years  president  of  the  Syrian  Protestant  College. 
The  graduates  of  that  college  gave  him  a  fare 
well  supper  in  New  York  at  a  downtown  Syrian 
restaurant.  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  one 
of  the  comparatively  few  American  invited 
guests.  He  sat  in  an  easy  chair  that  had  been 
provided  for  his  comfort.  His  body  was  aged 
and  getting  beyond  possible  repair.  But  he  had 
all  the  intellectual  courage,  the  welcoming  sym 
pathy,  the  broad  interest,  the  unfaltering  cour 
age,  and  the  genial  humour  which  had  made  him 
as  a  young  man  a  pioneer  and  a  chosen  leader 
among  pioneers.  When  it  came  time  for  him  to 
reply  to  the  cordial  farewells  that  had  been 
spoken,  his  son  helped  him  to  his  feet,  and, 
leaning  upon  his  crutch,  his  beautiful  face  fully 
framed  by  his  long  white  hair,  he  began  his 
speech  thus: 

177 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

"Boys!  in  this  last  speech  that  I  shall  ever 
make  to  you  I  will  repeat  the  first  speech  I  ever 
made  as  a  schoolboy: 

"'You'd  scarce  expect  one  of  my  age 
To  speak  in  public  on  the  stage.5" 

He  was  born  to  be  a  teacher.  No  one  is  fitted 
to  answer  the  questions  and  solve  the  problems 
of  youth  who  has  not  in  his  own  youth  formed  the 
habit  of  asking  questions  and  facing  problems. 
When  he  was  eight  or  nine  years  old  he  cut  off 
one  of  his  toes  with  a  scythe  in  the  hay-field.  This 
started  in  his  mind  the  question  what  would  be 
come  of  that  toe  in  the  resurrection.  His  father 
could  give  him  no  better  answer  than  that  the 
resurrection  was  a  great  mystery,  but  God  was 
able  to  raise  the  dead.  He  had  patience  as  well 
as  curiosity,  and  the  question  remained  un 
answered  for  twenty  years,  when  he  reached  the 
conclusion:  no  resurrection  of  the  body;  God 
shall  give  a  new  body.  In  narrating  this  inci 
dent,  he  adds :  "  Since  studying  Paul  I  have  never, 
except  in  memory,  seen  bones  flying  in  space  in 
search  of  the  old  body." 

In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  ask 
ing  questions  about  religion  was  generally  re 
garded  as  dangerous.  An  old  minister  remon 
strated  with  the  youthful  inquirer.  "Dan,"  he 
said,  "you  are  the  most  dangerous  boy  in  town." 

178 


DANIEL  BLISS 

"Why,  what  evil  have  I  done?"  "None;  that 
is  the  trouble.  If  you  were  drunk  half  the  time, 
your  influence  would  not  be  so  bad.  You 
neither  lie,  swear,  drink,  nor  quarrel,  and  others 
point  at  you  and  say,  'Dan  Bliss  is  not  a  Chris 
tian,  and  yet  what  a  good  boy  he  is.' ' 

He  carried  the  same  spirit  with  him  to  college. 
Graduating  in  1852,  when  the  anti-slavery  agi 
tation  was  at  its  height  and  Congress  had  passed 
a  resolution  that  there  should  be  no  agitation  of 
the  Slave  question  during  the  session,  he  took 
for  the  subject  of  his  graduating  address: 
"Agitation."  The  spirit  of  the  address  is  suf- 
ficently  indicated  by  a  single  sentence:  "Truth 
can  lose  nothing  by  agitation  but  may  gain  all; 
and  Error  can  gain  nothing  but  lose  all." 

It  indicated  both  the  spirit  of  the  American 
Board  and  the  non-combative  spirit  of  the  young 
collegian  that,  three  years  later,  young  Bliss,  still 
engaged  in  that  quest  for  truth  which  every  suc 
cess  converts  into  a  braver  quest,  obtained  an 
appointment  as  a  missionary  to  Syria  and  set  sail 
with  his  bride  in  a  sailing  vessel  of  three  hundred 
tons  burden.  Mrs.  Bliss  has  left  a  graphic  de 
scription  of  the  perils  of  what  proved  to  be  a 
perilous  voyage. 

In  1843  Doctor  van  Dyck  had  established  a 
higlTschool  in  Syria,  which  in  three  years  had  de 
veloped  into  an  academy  for  the  training  of 

179 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

teachers  and  preachers.  In  1855  it  had  twenty- 
four  students  and  its  curriculum  included  physics 
and  the  higher  mathematics  taught  from  Arabic 
textbooks  prepared  by  Doctor  van  Dyck  himself. 
Little  attention  was  paid  to  the  English  lan 
guage,  but  much  to  the  study  of  the  Bible. 

It  was  the  success  of  this  school  or  academy 
probably  that  led  to  the  suggestion  in  1862  of  an 
institute  for  the  higher  learning  in  Beirut.  It 
was  resolved  at  a  gathering  of  missionaries  to 
attempt  it,  and  Mr.  Bliss  was  chosen  as  its  princi 
pal.  Its  object  was  to  be,  not  proselytizing,  but 
education;  its  aim,  to  furnish  an  education  equal 
to  that  of  the  better  American  colleges;  the 
language  of  the  lectures  and  the  textbooks, 
Arabic.  It  was  an  undertaking  that  required 
an  audacious  faith  and  an  inexhaustible  patience. 
The  undertaking  was  sure  to  meet  bitter  hos 
tility  from  the  Turkish  Government,  for  apos 
tatizing  from  the  Moslem  faith  was  punishable 
by  death.  "A  delegation  of  Druses  called  on 
the  wife  of  a  Druse  seminary  student  who  was 
seeking  admission  to  the  Church  and  asked  her 
permission  to  kill  him."  Even  to  this  day  very 
few  of  the  students  either  in  the  Syrian  College 
in  Beirut  or  in  Robert  College  in  Constanti 
nople  are  of  Turkish  parentage.  It  could  have 
at  first  little  welcome  from  the  Syrian  Christians, 
for  they  were  divided  into  bitterly  hostile  sects. 

180 


DANIEL  BLISS 

"Mr.  Bliss's  maidservant,  who  was  a  member  of 
the  Greek  Church,  was  threatened  with  death 
by  her  own  family  when  she  encouraged  a  Prot 
estant  suitor."  There  was  no  money,  for  these 
missionaries  had  no  notion  of  taking  mission 
funds  to  support  an  educational  institute  which 
was  not  the  object  for  which  the  funds  were 
given.  The  money  must  be  raised  in  England 
and  in  the  United  States,  and  there  was  opposi 
tion  to  the  enterprise  in  both  countries.  To 
train  ministers  was  all  very  well,  but  to  prepare 
boys  for  other  callings — business,  law,  medicine, 
engineering,  literature — was  quite  another  mat 
ter.  Sectarian  differences  at  home  as  well  as 
sectarian  differences  abroad  had  to  be  overcome. 
The  movement  was  interesting  to  all  Christians 
and  therefore  did  not  interest  any  particular 
denomination. 

Not  least  of  the  burdens  to  be  borne  was  the 
great  variety  of  tasks  imposed  upon  those  who 
were  now  proposing  to  add  to  them  the  task  of 
building  a  college  in  a  community  which  did  not 
even  know  what  a  college  was.  :<  You  ask  about 
Abby's  health,"  writes  Mr.  Bliss  to  his  wife's 
mother.  :'You  must  know  that  she  is  much 
better  than  when  she  was  in  America,  for  could 
she  then  take  care  of  a  large  baby,  keep  a  house, 
and  attend  to  a  houseful  of  company,  make 
clothes  for  her  husband,  self,  and  baby,  besides 

181 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

fitting  dresses  for  others,  and  in  addition  to  all 
this  carry  on  a  correspondence  extensive  enough 
to  weary  out  a  common  mind?"  Nor  where  his 
labours  less  diversified.  "A  missionary  in  those 
days  had  to  be  a  jack-of -all-trades.  To  the 
ordinary  life  of  preacher  and  pastor  he  was 
obliged  to  add  the  function  of  a  lawyer  in  case 
members  of  his  flock  were  denied  their  legal 
rights;  he  daily  acted  as  school  superintendent; 
he  had  to  understand  the  arts  of  land  purchase, 
building,  carpentry;  he  was  indeed  often  helpless 
if  he  did  not  know  something  of  medicine.  In 
dealing  with  the  government  he  could  hope  for 
little  success  if  he  did  not  know  something  of 
diplomacy." 

The  college  was  devised  in  1862.  In  1871 
the  corner-stone  of  the  main  building  was  laid 
by  William  E.  Dodge,  one  of  its  principal  found 
ers,  and  on  that  occasion  in  the  following  char 
acteristic  utterance  Doctor  Bliss  interpreted  its 
spirit: 

This  college  is  for  all  conditions  and  classes  of  men  with 
out  regard  to  colour,  nationality,  race,  or  religion.  A  man, 
white,  black,  or  yellow,  Christian,  Jew,  Mohammedan,  or 
heathen,  may  enter  and  enjoy  all  the  advantages  of  this 
institution  for  three,  four,  or  eight  years,  and  go  out  be 
lieving  in  one  God,  in  many  gods,  or  in  no  god.  But  it 
will  be  impossible  for  any  one  to  continue  with  us  long 
without  knowing  what  we  believe  to  be  the  truth  and 
our  reasons  for  that  belief. 

182 


DANIEL  BLISS 

Upon  his  retirement  in  1902  his  son,  Howard 
Bliss,  was  elected  his  successor,  and  continued 
the  work  of  his  father  for  eighteen  years  in  his 
father's  catholic  spirit  and  with  his  father's 
courage.  Then,  worn  out  by  the  tragic  ex 
periences  through  which  the  college  passed  dur 
ing  the  World  War,  he  came  home  to  die.  But 
the  college  lives.  Under  the  administration  of  the 
father  and  the  son  it  has  grown  to  a  university 
with  seven  departments;  nine  hundred  students, 
drawn  from  a  territory  extending  from  the  Ural 
Mountains  to  Abyssinia,  and  from  Greece  and 
Egypt  to  Persia;  eighty  instructors;  twenty-six 
buildings  of  stone,  crowning  a  hill  overlooking 
the  Bay  of  Beirut  and  having  2,860  graduates, 
many  of  them  occupying  positions  of  command 
ing  influence  in  the  various  communities  from 
which  they  came  and  to  which  they  have  re 
turned.  They  are  its  epistles  known  and  read 
of  all  men;  and  the  college  itself  is  an  enduring 
monument  to  the  missionary  pioneer  who  had 
the  idealism  to  see,  the  courage  to  undertake,  and 
the  patience  to  accomplish  so  great  an  achieve 
ment. 


183 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY,  EVANGELIST 

WITHOUT  office  in  Church  or  State; 
without  theological,  collegiate,  or  even 
high -school  education;  without  a  church 
or  society  behind  him  to  support  him  or  a  con 
stituency,  except  such  as  he  himself  created,  to 
afford  him  moral  support;  without  any  of  the 
recognized  graces  of  oratory;  and  without  any 
ambition  to  form  a  new  ecclesiastical  organi 
zation  or  a  new  school  of  theological  thought,  and 
perhaps  without  the  ability  to  do  so;  nevertheless, 
Dwight  L.  Moody  probably  spoke  to  a  greater 
number  of  auditors  than  any  man  of  his  time  in 
either  Europe  or  America,  unless  possibly  John 
B.  Gough  may  be  an  exception,  and  he  spoke  on 
spiritual  themes  to  audiences  which  were  less 
prepared  therefor  by  any  previous  spiritual 
culture  than  those  addressed  on  such  themes  by 
any  preacher  since  Wesley  and  Whitfield. 

More  fundamental  than  the  much-discussed 
question,  Are  the  churches  losing  their  power?  is 
the  question,  What  is  the  secret  of  such  power 
as  they  possess?  What  is  the  attraction  that 
draws  to  the  churches,  with  such  regularity,  so 
many  men  and  women  of  different  stations  and 

184 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

of  varying  degrees  of  moral  and  intellectual 
culture?  To  markets  people  go  to  procure  food 
required  to  support  physical  life;  to  dry -goods 
stores,  for  clothing  necessary  for  comfort;  to 
theatres,  to  forget  their  toil  in  an  hour  of  amuse 
ment;  to  art  galleries  and  concert  rooms,  at 
tracted  by  aesthetic  desires;  to  schools,  that  they 
may  obtain  the  results  of  the  experience  of  the 
past,  and  so  may  avoid  the  blunders  of  their 
fathers.  But  why  do  they  go  to  church?  What 
do  they  expect?  What  have  they  a  right  to 
expect?  What  must  the  churches  give  to  them 
if  the  congregations  are  not  to  go  away  dis 
appointed?  These  questions  Mr.  Moody 's  char 
acter  and  career  help  at  once  to  emphasize  and 
to  answer. 

Dwight  Lyman  Moody  was  born  on  Febru 
ary  5,  1837.  His  father's  death  when  he  was 
four  years  old  left  his  widowed  mother  with  nine 
children,  a  mortgaged  New  England  farm,  and 
no  money.  They  were  so  poor  that  the  credi 
tors,  with  incredible  heartlessness,  took  from 
the  widow  everything  she  possessed,  including 
the  kindling  wood  from  the  wood-pile.  All  the 
schooling  the  boy  ever  had  was  given  to  him  by 
the  average  village  school,  and  that  average 
never  was,  and  is  not  now,  very  high.  He  never 
became  a  good  speller  nor  a  great  reader.  At 
seventeen  years  of  age  he  went  to  Boston,  got  a 

185 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

business  position  through  an  uncle  on  condition 
that  he  would  go  to  church  and  Sunday-school, 
accepted  the  condition  and  loyally  fulfilled  it, 
was  converted  and  wished  to  join  the  Church 
but  was  kept  out  for  a  year  because  one  of  the 
deacons  did  not  think  he  knew  enough  of  the 
essential  doctrines;  and  two  years  later  went  to 
Chicago,  which  furnished  a  more  congenial  atmos 
phere  for  his  energetic  spirit.  Here  he  applied 
to  a  mission  for  a  Sunday-school  class,  was  told 
he  could  have  one  if  he  could  get  the  scholars 
together,  and  appeared  the  next  Sunday  with  a 
complete  outfit  of  ragamuffins,  "an  embryonic 
Falstaffian  army." 

His  interest  in  his  Sunday  work  rapidly  in 
creased;  his  interest  in  his  week-day  work  as 
rapidly  diminished.  He  was  born  to  be  a  mis 
sionary,  as  Beethoven  was  to  be  a  musician  or 
Millet  to  be  a  painter.  It  is  a  very  common  ex 
perience  for  business  to  encroach  upon  religion; 
in  young  Moody's  case,  religion  encroached  upon 
business.  He  was  a  creature  of  enthusiasm; 
and  for  making  money  he  had  no  enthusiasm, 
for  teaching  ragamuffins  a  boundless  enthusiasm. 
When  he  had  saved  a  thousand  dollars,  he  cut 
loose  from  the  store  and  gave  himself  unre 
servedly  to  the  mission.  His  thousand  dollars 
was  soon  exhausted;  but  he  was  not  disturbed. 
When  asked  what  he  was  doing  and  how  he  was 

186 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

supported,  his  ready  reply  was,  "I  am  working 
for  God,  and  he  is  rich." 

No  man  can  understand  Mr.  Moody  who  does 
not  appreciatively  understand  the  meaning  of 
enthusiasm.  He  was  an  enthusiast,  as  were 
Paul,  Luther,  Wesley.  His  whole  life  might  be 
summed  up,  his  whole  character  portrayed,  in 
three  phrases  from  one  of  Paul's  letters:  "In 
diligence  not  slothful;  in  spirit  aflame;  serving 
the  Lord."  To  a  remarkable  degree  and  in  a  re 
markable  measure  he  united  a  practical  judg 
ment  with  an  enthusiastic  spirit,  both  directed 
by  absolute  singleness  of  purpose. 

He  possessed,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately, 
was  possessed  by,  a  miraculous  energy.  I  use 
the  word  "miraculous"  advisedly.  A  miracle,  as 
that  word  is  used  in  the  New  Testament,  in 
dicates  a  work  that  excites  wonder  and  is  ac 
cepted  as  an  indication  of  extraordinary  power. 
Mr.  Moody's  work  to  the  end  of  his  life  excited 
the  wonder  of  all  who  knew  him,  and  the  more 
they  knew  him  the  greater  was  the  wonder.  To 
them  his  work  was  a  demonstration  that  he 
possessed  a  very  extraordinary  spiritual  power. 
He  might  be  defined  as  a  spiritual  athlete.  Of 
course  his  energy  was  not  literally  tireless,  but 
to  those  who  worked  with  him  it  seemed  so. 
Life  is  the  best  interpreter  of  the  Bible.  Mr. 
Moody's  life  interpreted  to  his  friends  and  co- 

187 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

workers  the  meaning  of  Christ's  words  to  his 
disciples :  "I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not 
of." 

With  this  energy,  and  inseparable  from  it,  was 
an  adventurous  spirit.  He  was  never  afraid  of 
risks.  If  he  had  speculated,  he  would  have  made 
or  lost  great  fortunes — perhaps  both  lost  them  and 
made  them.  If  he  had  become  a  "captain  of 
industry,"  the  industry  would  have  been  a  large 
one  and  the  workers  well  organized  and  to  a  man 
loyal  to  their  captain.  The  greatness  of  an  under 
taking  always  fascinated  him.  Difficulties  in  its 
accomplishment  never  daunted  him.  The  word 
"impossible"  was  not  in  his  vocabulary.  There 
was  a  curious  psychological  resemblance  between 
Moody  and  Grant.  One  was  speechful,  the  other 
taciturn;  one  was  a  soldier,  the  other  an  evange 
list.  But  to  both  difficulty,  opposition,  danger 
were  a  challenge;  neither  surrendered  to  a  defeat; 
both  were  inspired  with  incredible  courage  by  the 
greatness  of  the  service  to  which  they  had  been 
called. 

Out  of  his  Sunday-school  in  Chicago  grew  a 
Congregational  church  of  which  he  was  pastor, 
although  he  was  never  ordained  to  the  ministry. 
The  Congregational  churches  habitually  use, 
but  their  principles  do  not  require,  ordination, 
nor  does  their  ordination  confer  any  ecclesias 
tical  authority.  The  Chicago  fire  destroyed  his 

188 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

church;  at  the  same  time  two  not  particularly 
conspicuous  English  Nonconformist  ministers 
invited  him  to  go  to  England  and  begin  an 
evangelistic  work  there,  but  made  no  provision 
for  the  trip.  Doctor  Goss  in  his  biography  of 
Mr.  Moody  thus  narrates  the  result: 

That  first  trip  will  be  long  remembered  for  the  incred 
ible  manner  in  which  it  was  undertaken.  He  set  the  day 
for  his  departure,  but  did  not  have  a  cent  with  which  to 
pay  his  expenses.  However,  this  did  not  seem  to  disturb 
him  in  the  least,  for  he  went  on  with  his  preparation  as  if 
he  had  millions  in  a  vault.  There  were  still  but  a  few 
hours  left  before  the  departure  of  the  train,  and  yet  the 
funds  were  not  in  sight.  The  trunks  were  packed  and  his 
family  waiting.  It  was  about  time  for  someone  to  turn 
up  with  money,  one  would  think!  And  sure  enough  he 
did!  A  friend  who  thought  that  he  would  need  some 
"after  he  reached  England,"  handed  him  five  hundred  dol 
lars!  There  have  been  too  many  such  strange  events  in 
his  life  to  make  it  easy  to  call  them  mere  coincidences. 

The  evangelistic  mission  was  successful,  al 
though  when  Mr.  Moody  reached  England  one 
of  the  two  ministers  who  had  invited  him  was 
dead  and  the  other  dangerously  ill,  so  that  he 
was  left  without  any  point  of  contact  with  the 
English  except  such  as  he  himself  could  make. 

Quite  as  noteworthy  was  his  undertaking  the 
publication  of  the  "  Gospel  Hymns."  Music  had 
for  him  no  special  attraction.  But  he  realized 

189 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

its  emotional  power,  and,  perceiving  that  power 
in  a  young  man  who  led  the  singing  at  a  religious 
convention,  he  called  on  Mr.  Sankey  to  become 
his  co-worker  in  his  evangelistic  enterprise  and 
pledged  him  a  financial  support.  Pretty  soon 
the  need  of  hymn-books  that  could  be  scattered 
through  the  audiences  was  felt.  If  they  were 
needed,  they  must  be  had.  He  went  to  a  Lon 
don  publisher.  The  publisher  refused;  he  had 
made  the  experiment,  published  a  book  of  revival 
hymns,  and  the  books  had  been  left  unsold  on 
his  hands.  He  went  to  another  publisher,  who 
would  publish  only  in  case  Mr.  Moody  would 
assume  all  the  financial  risks.  Mr.  Moody  pro 
posed  the  venture  to  Mr.  Sankey,  and  Mr. 
Sankey  prudently  declined.  But  the  books 
were  needed  as  ammunition  for  the  campaign 
and  Mr.  Moody  was  determined  to  have  the 
ammunition.  He  had  no  money,  but  he  had 
courage.  He  assumed  the  entire  financial  re 
sponsibility  without  knowing  where  the  money 
would  come  from  if  the  publication  proved  to  be 
a  commercial  failure.  It  proved  to  be  a  com 
mercial  success;  the  "Gospel  Hymns"  sold  by 
the  million;  they  made  a  fortune.  For  Mr. 
Moody?  No!  The  first  profits  were  given  to 
benevolent  enterprises;  and  when  the  fortune 
waxed  great  it  was  by  a  legally  executed  instru 
ment  permanently  devoted  to  endowing  schools 

190 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

at  Northfield,  Massachusetts,  organized  by  him 
for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  higher  education 
to  pupils  of  moderate  means. 

This  artless  faith  that  all  money  belongs  to  the 
Lord  and  that  it  can  be  had  for  the  Lord's  work 
if  one  goes  about  it  in  the  right  way  to  get  it,  was 
the  secret  of  Mr.  Moody's  remarkable  success  as 
a  money  raiser.  He  started  out  one  day  with 
"the  best  minister  in  Edinburgh"  to  raise  money 
for  a  mission  in  that  city,  the  minister  taking  the 
lead  and  asking  from  ten  to  fifteen  pounds  at 
each  call. 

"I  saw,"  said  Mr.  Moody,  "it  was  going  to  take  all 
winter  at  that  gait,  and  so  (not  daring  to  criticize  him) 
when  we  came  to  the  next  house  (that  of  a  very  grand  and 
wealthy  woman)  I  said,  'How  much  are  you  going  to  ask 
her  fort' 

"  'Oh,  perhaps  fifty  pounds/ 

"I  kept  still,  but  when  the  door  opened  into  the  room 
where  she  was  I  just  pushed  ahead  and  said : 

"'Madam,  I  have  come  to  ask  you  for  two  thousand 
pounds  to  help  build  a  new  mission  down  at  Carrubers 
Close/ 

"  She  threw  up  both  hands  and  exclaimed :  'Oh,  mercy ! 
Mr.  Moody,  I  cannot  possibly  give  more  than  one  thou 
sand/ 

"This  reply  astonished  the  timid  minister  so  much  that 
he  almost  fainted  and  when  they  got  outside  he  said: 
'You'd  better  go  ahead/  And  I  did ! 

The  result  was  that  at  the  end  of  the  day  they  had  raised 
the  $100,000.  Not  long  after,  Mr.  Moody  received  a  note 

191 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

saying,  'Well,  Moody,  you  raised  the  money  but  you  used 
up  the  best  minister  in  Scotland,  and  we  had  to  send  him 
off  for  a  three-months'  vacation.' 5> 


This  story  is  matched  by  one  in  America.  He 
called  once  on  a  wealthy  man  who  had  made 
the  principle  of  systematic  giving  a  protection 
against  excessive  generosity;  he  made  it  a  rule 
never  to  give  more  than  one  hundred  dollars 
at  a  time.  Mr.  Moody  wanted  a  large  amount— 
I  believe,  ten  thousand  dollars.  "  But,"  said  Mr. 

T ,  "you  know  my  rule,  don't  you?"    "Yes," 

replied  Mr.  Moody,  "but  I  thought  it  would  save 
your  time  and  mine  to  give  it  at  once  and  not 
require  a  hundred  calls."  He  got  the  whole 
amount.  "Father  gave  all  he  had,"  said  his  son 
in  narrating  the  incident  to  me,  "and  he  asked 
the  same  from  other  people." 

This  miraculous  energy,  this  adventurous 
courage  which  characterized  Mr.  Moody  were 
born  of  his  spiritual  faith — faith  in  God,  faith 
in  himself  as  God's  child  engaged  in  doing  his 
Father's  work,  and  faith  that  in  ordinary  men 
there  are  somnolent  spiritual  forces  which  will 
respond  to  the  call  of  conscience  and  aspiration 
if  one  only  knows  how  to  voice  the  call.  The 
engineer  builds  a  bridge  in  serene  confidence  that 
he  can  rely  upon  the  attraction  of  gravitation, 
though  he  neither  knows  what  it  is  nor  why  it 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

works  as  it  does.  The  physician  prescribes  for 
his  patient  with  the  hope  that  the  disordered 
body,  despite  the  disorder,  will  respond  to  the 
^emedy.  As  there  are  laws  of  the  material  world 
in  which  the  engineer  has  faith,  as  there  are  laws 
of  the  body  in  which  the  physician  has  faith, 
so  there  are  laws  of  the  spiritual  universe  in 
which  the  evangelist  has  faith.  Like  the  serene 
faith  of  the  engineer  in  the  laws  of  nature,  like 
the  less  serene  faith  of  the  physician  in  the  laws 
of  the  body,  was  Mr.  Moody's  faith  in  the  laws 
of  the  spirit,  and  it  was  one  very  important  ele 
ment  in  his  extraordinary  personality. 

In  1885  he  was  conducting  some  evangelistic 
meetings  in  London.  A  young  physician  of  the 
city,  who  had  been  confirmed  in  the  Established 
Church  but  to  whom  public  worship  was  little 
more  than  a  method  of  paying  proper  public 
respect  to  the  Great  King,  was  one  day  passing 
the  hall  where  Mr.  Moody's  meetings  were  being 
held.  Impelled  by  a  mild  curiosity  and  having 
a  leisure  half -hour,  he  stepped  inside  to  see  what 
a  "Moody  meeting"  was  like.  The  hall  was 
crowded.  Someone  on  the  platform  was  offer 
ing  a  volunteer  prayer.  It  had  not  the  ripened 
beauty  of  the  Episcopal  ritual  and  did  not  ap 
peal  to  the  young  doctor.  The  prayer  went 
on — and  on — and  on — and  seemed  likely  never 
to  come  to  an  end,  and,  the  curiosity  of  the  doc- 

193 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

tor  more  than  satisfied,  he  was  about  to  slip  out 
as  quietly  as  he  had  entered,  when  a  sturdy  and 
rather  plain-looking  man  occupying  a  chair  in 
the  centre  of  the  platform  rose  and  said:  "While 
the  brother  is  finishing  his  prayer  we  will  sing 

hymn  number ."     The  young  man  stayed. 

This  was  not  only  novelty,  it  was  reality.  And 
then  and  there  Dr.  Wilfred  Grenfell  received 
the  impulse  which  has  made  him  an  apostle  of 
spiritual  faith  not  only  to  the  fishermen  of 
Labrador  but  to  unnumbered  thousands  in 
England,  Canada,  and  the  United  States. 

I  was  once  a  witness  of  a  somewhat  similar 
illustration  of  Mr.  Moody's  personal  power, 
though  one  not  so  striking  and  dramatic.  Mr. 
Moody  was  holding,  with  the  cooperation  of  the 
churches,  a  series  of  meetings  in  Brooklyn.  One 
day  had  been  set  apart  to  be  observed  as  a  day 
of  fasting  and  prayer.  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
spoke  in  a  quiet,  conversational  tone  and  fol 
lowed  with  a  prayer  in  the  tenderest  and  most 
spiritual  mood.  It  recalled  Christ's  prayer  at 
the  Last  Supper.  Then  there  arose  just  behind 
me  a  shouting  revivalist.  He  was  oratorical, 
waxed  louder  and  louder,  grasped  the  back  of  the 
pew  in  which  I  was  sitting  and  shook  it  in  the 
vehemence  of  his  real  or  artificial  emotion.  It 
recalled  to  me  Elijah's  scornful  address  to  the 
priests  of  Baal:  "Cry  aloud:  for  he  is  a  god; 

194 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

either  he  is  musing,  or  he  is  gone  aside,  or  he  is 
in  a  journey,  or  peradventure  he  sleepeth,  and 
must  be  awaked."  When  at  length  the  orator 
stopped,  out  of  breath  with  his  vociferous  de 
votion,  I  thought  the  meeting  was  destroyed;  that 
nothing  could  bring  back  to  it  its  devotional 
atmosphere.  Mr.  Moody  rose  and  said,  with 
that  strangely  quiet  and  penetrating  voice  of  his : 
"Now  let  us  have  three  minutes  of  silent  prayer." 
And  the  silence  which  he  summoned  erased  the 
disturbing  oration  and  restored  the  spirit  of  de 
votion. 

This  penetrating  personality  of  Mr.  Moody 
made  him  a  great  bearer  of  a  great  message. 
What  was  that  message  which  he  believed  would 
meet  the  great  but  unconscious  or  half -conscious 
hunger  of  the  souls  of  men?  I  shall  not  under 
take  here  to  analyze  this  spiritual  hunger  or  to 
describe  the  elements  which  enter  into  it,  or  all 
the  causes  which  especially  and  notably  excite 
it.  It  must  suffice  for  my  present  purpose  to 
indicate  two  elements,  neither  of  which  is  ever 
wholly  wanting  from  any  man  who  is  not  him 
self  wholly  lacking  in  some  of  the  elements 
essential  to  a  normal  manhood;  the  first  relates 
to  his  past,  the  second  to  his  future. 

Every  healthful  man  sometimes— some  men 
at  all  times — looks  back  regretfully  upon  his 
past.  He  is  conscious  of  blunders  in  judgment, 

195 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

aberrations  of  will,  deliberate  acts  of  wrong 
doing,  which  have  brought  injury  upon  himself 
and  upon  others.  He  wishes  that  he  could  live 
again  his  life,  or  some  particular  crisis  in  his  life. 
Sometimes  this  is  a  keen  sense  of  shame  for  some 
specific  deed  done  or  duty  neglected;  sometimes 
a  vague  feeling  of  self-condemnation  without 
clearly  defined  specific  cause;  sometimes  a  pass 
ing  shadow,  evanescent  and  uninfluential ;  some 
times  a  morbid  self-condemnation,  depressing 
the  spirits  and  tending  toward  despair.  He  who 
has  never  felt  this  sense  of  remorse  in  some  one 
of  its  various  forms  is  singularly  lacking  either 
in  his  memory,  his  ideals,  or  his  power  of  sitting 
in  judgment  upon  his  own  conduct  and  character. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  any  desire  which  the 
human  soul  ever  possessed  is  keener  or  more 
overmastering  than  the  desire  sometimes  pos 
sesses  us,  in  certain  phases  of  our  experience, 
to  be  rid  of  our  ineradicable  past  and  to  be  per 
mitted  to  begin  life  anew,  unclogged  and  un 
burdened. 

The  other  spiritual  hunger  of  the  soul  relates 
to  the  future.  The  soul  is  conscious  of  unde 
veloped  possibilities  in  itself;  it  is  spurred  on, 
to  it  knows  not  what  future,  by  unsatisfied 
aspirations.  It  longs  to  do  and  to  be  more,  and 
rather  to  be  than  to  do.  It  suffers  what  I  may 
call  "growing  pains."  It  has  in  the  sphere  of 

196 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

moral  experience  aspirations  that  may  be  com 
pared  to  those  which  have  summoned  the  great 
est  musicians  and  the  greatest  artists  to  their 
careers.  This  sense  of  unsatisfied  aspiration 
differs  from  the  sense  of  remorse  in  that  it  relates 
to  the  future,  not  to  the  past;  the  one  is  a  con 
sciousness  of  wrong  committed  or  duty  left  un 
done,  the  other  of  life  incomplete.  The  cry  of 
the  soul  in  the  one  experience  is  that  of  Paul. 
"Who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this 
death?"  The  cry  of  the  other  is  that  of  Tenny 
son: 

Oh,  for  a  man  to  arise  in  me 

That  the  man  that  I  am  may  cease  to  be. 

The  one  is  a  craving  for  peace,  the  other  for 
achievement. 

It  is  because  the  Christian  religion  is  able  to 
satisfy  these  two  passionate  desires  of  the  human 
soul — the  desire  for  peace  and  the  desire  for 
achievement — that  it  possesses  the  attraction 
which  the  failures  and  the  folly  of  its  adherents 
may  diminish  but  cannot  destroy. 

The  Church  of  Christ  declares  to  men  that 
God  bears  no  ill-will  toward  them;  that  he  de 
sires  for  them  that  they  shall  be  good  men  and 
true;  that  to  accomplish  this,  his  good  will 
toward  them,  Jesus  Christ  has  come  for  his 
Father  and  our  Father  into  the  world,  and  that 

197 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

this  fact  is  attested  by  the  joyous  experience  of 
unnumbered  millions  of  different  eras,  creeds, 
and  races.  At  the  same  time  the  Church  in 
spires  with  hope  for  the  future.  It  tells  the 
story  of  a  Man  who  in  himself  fulfilled  the  spir 
itual  desires  that  are  in  all  noble  men,  and  then, 
departing,  left  as  his  legacy  the  command,  which 
is  also  a  promise:  "Follow  me."  It  answers 
the  question,  "What  is  human  nature?"  by  point 
ing  to  the  character  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  with 
the  assurance  that,  what  He  was  every  man  can 
become,  and  it  answers  the  question,  "Is  life 
worth  living?"  by  pointing  to  that  life  and  de 
claring  that,  as  He  laid  down  His  life  for  us,  so 
can  we  lay  down  our  lives  for  one  another. 

This  is  the  message  of  the  Christian  Church 
reduced  to  its  simplest  form;  the  message  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  ecclesiastic  and  the  Protestant 
preacher,  of  Cardinal  Gibbons  and  General 
William  Booth.  I  think  its  briefest  statement 
in  religious  literature  is  that  of  Isaac  Watts: 

But  he  forgives  my  follies  past 

And  gives  me  strength  for  days  to  come. 

I  lay  down  my  pen,  close  my  eyes,  and  lean 
back  in  my  chair,  and  the  scene  of  my  childhood 
is  before  me — our  Sunday-evening  service  of 
song  in  my  grandfather's  home;  and  I  hear  again 
the  treble  voice  of  my  aged  aunt,  singing  in  our 

198 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

closing  hymn  as  her  own  experience,  this  con 
fession  of  faith  which  her  favourite  hymn  writer 
liad  phrased  for  her.  Then  the  scene  disappears 
anpl  her  song  is  taken  up  by  a  great  chorus,  a 
host  like  the  sands  on  the  seashore  for  multitude, 
whom  no  tongue  can  number  and  no  imagination 
can  picture,  and  in  which  all  lands  and  all 
generations,  the  living  and  the  dead,  have  a  part. 

This  was  Mr.  Moody's  twofold  message — 
forgiveness  for  the  past,  strength  for  the  future. 

His  theology  was  very  simple.  Asked  by  an 
orthodox  Churchman  for  his  creed,  he  replied: 
"It  is  already  in  print  and  circulation,  the  fifty- 
third  chapter  of  Isaiah."  One  verse  from  that 
chapter  suffices  for  one  article  of  his  creed :  "  All 
we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray;  we  have  turned 
every  one  to  his  own  way;  and  the  Lord  hath  laid 
on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all."  The  other  article 
of  his  creed  is  comprised  in  a  verse  which  he  often 
quoted  and  which  he  always  lived:  "As  many 
as  received  him,  to  them  gave  he  power  to  be 
come  the  sons  of  God,  even  to  them  that  believe 
on  his  name."  I  think  his  message  might  all  be 
summed  up  in  one  sentence :  You  can  leave  all 
your  past  for  God  to  take  care  of,  provided  you 
will  give  yourself  unreservedly  to  him  and  his 
service  for  the  future.  The  whole  object  of  his 
ministry,  whether  he  spoke  to  a  thousand  from 
the  platform  or  to  one  in  the  inquiry  meeting,  was 

199 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

to  bring  individuals  to  self -surrender  and  self- 
devotion.  He  was  a  recruiting  officer;  and  he 
neither  asked  as  to  the  life  of  the  past  nor  as  to  the 
opinions  entertained  or  the  feelings  experienced 
in  the  present;  his  one  and  only  question  was: 
"Will  you  devote  yourself  unto  death  for  the 
future  to  Christ  and  his  cause?" 

Mr.  Moody  had  none  of  the  arts  of  the  orator. 
He  had  a  carrying  voice,  and  without  apparent 
effort  on  his  part  could  be  heard  throughout  the 
largest  halls.  He  was  intense  in  spirit  but  quiet 
in  method,  generally  conversational  in  tone, 
never  shouted,  rarely  was  dramatic,  never 
theatrical,  his  gestures  simple.  One  of  his  co- 
workers  reports  that  once,  to  emphasize  his 
picture  of  a  man  refusing  to  take  the  medicine 
that  would  cure  him  and  then  blaming  the  phy 
sician,  "he  actually  took  the  tumbler  that  was 
on  the  table  and  dashed  the  water  on  the  floor." 
But  whenever  I  heard  him,  and  I  heard  him 
frequently,  he  depended  entirely  on  the  spiritual 
power  of  his  message  and  his  own  intense  con 
viction  of  its  truth.  I  venture  to  transcribe  here 
the  impression  of  his  appearance  and  method  on 
the  platform  as  I  wrote  it  at  the  time  of  his  death : 

As  he  stood  on  the  platform  he  looked  like  a  business 
man;  he  dressed  like  a  business  man;  he  took  the  meeting 
in  hand  as  a  business  man  would;  he  spoke  in  a  business 
man's  fashion;  he  had  no  holy  tone;  he  never  introduced  a 

200 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

jest  for  a  jest's  sake,  but  he  did  not  fear  to  use  humour  if 
humour  would  serve  his  purpose;  he  never  turned  a  sen 
tence  neatly  to  catch  that  applause  of  the  eye  which  is  sub 
stituted  in  religious  assemblies  for  applause  of  the  hands; 
and  whether  they  believed  in  him  or  not,  his  auditors  were 
always  sure  that  he  believed  all  that  he  said,  and,  indeed, 
said  less  than  he  believed  because  no  language  could  ex 
press  fully  the  experience  of  his  own  life. 


His  sermons  abounded  in  illustrations  but 
they  were  never  used  for  ornament;  were  seldom 
taken  from  either  nature  or  literature;  with 
rare  exceptions  were  concrete  biographical  ac 
counts  borrowed  from  his  rich  and  varied 
pastoral  experience,  and  used  not  to  enforce  a 
theory  but  always  to  make  vivid  a  fact.  He 
aroused  the  emotions  of  his  audience,  but  not 
by  an  emotional  appeal.  The  notion  dissemi 
nated  during  his  life  by  his  critics  that  he  pic 
tured  hell-fire  to  excite  men's  terror  and  a  celes 
tial  heaven  to  excite  their  sensual  delight  was 
absolutely  untrue;  was  the  reverse  of  the  truth. 
I  think  the  most  terrifying  sermon  on  future 
punishment  I  ever  heard  was  one  on  "Son, 
remember."  But  it  was  wholly  psychological; 
a  vivid  portrayal  of  what  was  here  and  what 
would  be  hereafter  the  anguish  of  a  soul  who, 
looking  back,  could  remember  only  a  life  of 
wasted  opportunities,  sensual  excesses,  selfish 
cruelties.  There  lies  before  me,  as  I  write,  a 

201 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORAKIES 

volume  of  "Twelve  Selected  Sermons,"  ap 
parently  selected  by  Mr.  Moody  himself,  pub 
lished  in  1880.  One  of  these  sermons  is  on  the 
words  "The  Gospel."  It  is  his  definition  of  the 
Gospel  as  he  understood  it.  No  condensation 
can  adequately  interpret  its  illustrative  quality 
and  its  spiritual  power,  but  a  few  lines  may 
suffice  to  indicate  to  the  thoughtful  reader  the 
essential  nature  of  his  simple  message.  He  says : 

I  like  the  Gospel  because  it  has  been  for  me  the  very 
best  news  I  have  ever  heard.  It  has  taken  out  of  my  path 
four  of  the  bitterest  enemies  I  ever  had. 

It  has  taken  away  the  fear  of  death.  The  Conquerer 
bursts  the  bands  of  death  and  shouts:  "Because  I  live  ye 
shall  live  also." 

It  takes  away  the  burden  of  sin.  It  tells  me:  "As  far  as 
the  East  is  from  the  West  so  far  has  he  removed  our  trans 
gressions  from  us." 

It  takes  away  the  fear  of  judgment.  Christ  declares : 
"He  that  believeth  on  Him  that  sent  me  is  passed  from 
death  unto  life." 

It  takes  away  bondage  to  sin  and  gives  me  the  spirit  of 
liberty.  Do  I  speak  to  a  man  who  is  a  slave  to  strong 
drink?  Christ  can  give  you  strength  to  hurl  the  cup  from 
you  and  make  you  a  sober  man,  a  loving  husband,  a  kind 
father. 

It  is  a  free  Gospel.  This  Good  News  I  am  bid  to  pro 
claim  to  "every  creature." 

In  an  important  respect  the  spirit  of  this  ser 
mon  characterized  all  Mr.  Moody's  preaching. 

202 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

His  sermons  were  never  expositions  of  a  theo 
logical  theory;  they  were  always  interpretations 
of  a  present  experience.  In  this  sermon  he  says 
nothing  about  a  future  punishment  from  which 
the  sinner  is  saved  by  the  Gospel.  He  believed 
and  habitually  preached  a  hell  on  earth  and  a 
heaven  on  earth.  Lost  and  saved  were  with 
him  present  facts.  To  live  without  God  and 
without  the  glorious  life  that  companionship 
with  God  inspires  is  to  be  lost,  to  live  in  that 
companionship  and  inspired  by  that  hope  and 
love  is  to  be  saved.  That  there  is  an  eternal 
lost  which  lies  in  the  future  of  the  one  condition 
and  an  eternal  saved  which  lies  in  the  future  of 
the  other  condition  was  implied  in  his  teaching, 
but  this  was  not  the  truth  on  which  he  laid  chief 
emphasis.  I  once  studied  with  care  a  published 
volume  of  his  sermons  to  endeavour  to  get  the 
secret  of  his  power.  The  examination  confirmed 
his  own  summary  of  his  preaching:  "I  used  to 
think,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  sermons,  "of  God 
as  a  stern  judge  on  the  throne,  from  whose  wrath 
Jesus  Christ  had  saved  me.  It  seems  to  me  now 
I  could  not  have  a  falser  idea  of  God  than  that. 
Since  I  have  become  a  father,  I  have  made  this 
discovery:  That  it  takes  more  love  and  sacrifice 
for  the  father  to  give  up  the  son  than  it  does  for 
the  son  to  die." 

His  method  of  preparation  for  his  sermons  was 

203 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

unique.  He  had  no  background  of  material  for 
preaching  prepared  by  a  course  of  school,  college, 
and  professional  education.  So  he  prepared  his 
own  background  by  a  method  of  his  own  creation. 
He  had  a  number  of  large  manilla  envelopes 
labelled  topically  to  suit  the  method  of  his 
own  thinking,  such  as  Repentance,  Grace,  Love, 
and  the  like.  Into  these  envelopes  he  put  all 
sorts  of  material — sometimes  his  own  thoughts, 
sometimes  a  copy  of  something  he  had  read, 
sometimes  clippings  from  a  newspaper  or  a  peri 
odical.  When  an  envelope  was  full,  he  would 
open  a  new  one.  In  time  he  accumulated  five 
or  six  hundred  of  these  envelopes,  often  two  or 
more  on  the  same  topic.  These  constituted  his 
pulpit  material — his  library,  so  to  speak — and 
from  them  he  prepared  his  sermons,  generally  in 
vacation.  These  sermons  were  mere  notes,  writ 
ten  in  a  very  large  hand,  not  more  than  three  or 
four  words  on  a  line.  They  were  usually  filed 
in  his  Bible,  kept  in  place  by  a  rubber  band, 
generally  at  the  text  he  had  chosen.  These  notes 
he  took  to  the  pulpit  or  platform  with  him,  but 
he  never  read  his  sermons;  he  used  the  notes 
merely  as  memoranda. 

He  never  "got  up"  a  revival.  He  was  gene 
rally  invited  to  a  church,  or  to  a  town  or  city,  by 
a  cooperation  of  churches,  and  to  the  committee 
spontaneously  organized  by  the  church  or  the 

204 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

combination  of  churches  he  left  all  preliminary 
arrangements.  Nor  did  he  ordinarily  make  any 
effort  at  the  close  of  his  mission  to  organize  its 
results.  The  work  of  preparing  the  ground  and 
the  work  of  gathering  in  the  harvest  he  left  to 
others.  But  his  preaching  was  almost  invari 
ably  accompanied  by  inquiry  meetings,  and 
these  were  always  carried  on  under  his  immedi 
ate  supervision.  He  himself  selected  his  co- 
workers.  Partly  by  temperament  and  partly 
by  long  experience,  he  had  acquired  an  intuitive 
judgment  of  spiritual  character.  His  super 
vision  of  these  meetings  extended  to  the  mi 
nutest  details,  such  as  a  draught  from  an  open 
window  or  a  buzzing  gas  jet. 

He  had  an  enormous  correspondence,  many 
of  the  letters  asking  counsel  on  ethical  or  spirit 
ual  or  perhaps  theological  problems.  Writing 
was  always  a  great  physical  effort  for  him  and 
he  never  learned  to  use  a  typewriter.  Mr. 
Paul  Moody,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  some 
of  these  incidents,  has  given  me  an  interesting 
picture  of  his  management  of  this  phase  of  his 
ever-growing  work : 

He  handled  his  correspondence  at  home,  which  was  the 
only  place  where  I  saw  it.  It  was  very  interesting.  He 
entertained  more  or  less.  There  were  usually  people  stop 
ping  at  the  house,  and  he  would  sit  at  the  desk  opening  his 
letters,  glancing  at  them,  and  then  would  throw  them 

205 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORAEIES 

across  the  room  to  some  member  of  the  family  with  the 
direction:  "Answer  that."  Sometimes  it  was  a  difficult 
letter  which  demanded  quite  a  little  thought,  and  if  you 
brought  it  to  him  and  asked  him  what  he  wanted  to  say 
he  always  replied  by  saying:  "I  do  not  intend  to  buy  a 
dog  and  then  do  the  barking  myself.  If  I  were  going  to 
answer  it  I  would,  but  I  want  you  to  answer  it."  Very 
seldom  would  he  take  a  letter  back.  Once  in  a  while  an 
unknown  person  made  a  confession  a  matter  of  the  soul, 
and  that  I  refused  to  handle.  My  mother  did  a  great  deal 
of  his  correspondence.  My  mother  was  the  buffer  between 
himself  and  the  world.  She  was  the  "shock  absorber." 
She  stood  between  him  and  things. 

Mr.  Moody  did  not  have  that  broad  intel 
lectual  outlook  which  scholarship  sometimes, 
but  not  always,  gives  to  the  scholar.  But  he  had 
that  broad  human  outlook  which  almost  in 
variably  characterizes  the  man  who  possesses 
both  a  living  spiritual  faith  and  catholic  human 
sympathies,  who  estimates  men  not  by  the  ac 
cidents  of  their  creed,  their  race,  or  their  social 
culture,  but  by  their  character,  and  can  there 
fore  recognize  real  spiritual  worth  in  men  of 
differing  theological  opinions.  This  catholicity 
of  spirit  led  him  to  welcome  the  cooperation  in 
his  evangelistic  labours  of  men  whose  intellectual 
outlook  was  very  different  from  his  own,  and 
made  him  indifferent  to  theological  theories 
which  men  of  less  catholic  temper  regarded  of 
vital  importance. 

£06 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

In  the  book  of  "Selected  Sermons,"  from  which 
I  have  already  quoted,  are  two  on  "The  Blood." 
In  these  sermons  Mr.  Moody  lays  great  emphasis 
on  the  passion  and  death  of  Jesus  Christ  as  at 
once  a  fruit  and  a  proof  of  God's  forgiving  love, 
but  it  would  not  be  easy  for  any  theologian  to 
deduce  from  them  which  one  of  the  conflicting 
theological  theories  of  the  atonement  he  held. 
He  accepted  the  Bible  as  an  infallible  rule  of 
faith  and  practice;  but  he  habitually  used  it  as 
the  Epistle  to  Timothy  affirms  it  should  be  used 
—for  reproof,  correction,  and  instruction  in 
righteousness.  I  do  not  think  that  he  ever  dis 
cussed  the  supposed  bearing  of  the  Bible  on  such 
questions  as  the  age  of  the  world  and  the  proc 
esses  of  creation.  It  was  wholly  as  a  book  of 
spiritual  experiences  that  he  used  it,  and  its 
adaptation  to  that  use  was  for  him  an  adequate 
verification  of  its  authority.  In  the  little  booklet 
on  the  use  of  the  Bible  which  he  published  I  do 
not  find  any  discussion  concerning  the  nature  of 
inspiration.  His  question  to  George  Adam 
Smith:  "Why  do  you  make  such  a  fuss  about 
two  Isaiahs  when  most  people  do  not  know  that 
there  is  one?"  indicates  his  comparative  indiffer 
ence  to  the  so-called  "Higher  Criticism."  And 
the  fact  that  certainly  with  his  consent,  if  not  at 
his  request,  I  gave  in  the  eighties  a  course  of 
winter  lectures  on  the  Bible  at  the  two  North- 

207 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

field  Schools,  crossing  the  Connecticut  River 
on  the  ice  with  the  thermometer  ten  degrees  or 
more  below  zero,  indicates  his  entire  readiness  to 
welcome  for  his  pupils  any  light  on  the  Bible 
provided  it  came  from  one  who  was  seeking  to 
find  in  it  for  himself  and  others  inspiration  for 
the  Christian  life. 

Another  incident  in  which  I  participated 
showed  how  little  sympathy  he  had  with  the 
heresy  hunters.  At  the  time  of  the  World's 
Fair  in  Chicago  an  arrangement  was  made  for 
the  cooperation  of  the  Evangelical  churches  in 
their  Sunday  services  under  the  direction  of 
Mr.  Moody.  An  invitation  to  preach  on  my 
visit  to  the  Fair  I  declined,  because  I  was  un 
willing  even  to  seem  to  interfere  with  this  co 
operative  movement.  The  invitation  was  then 
renewed  through  Mr.  Moody,  and  I  preached, 
not  in  the  Evangelistic  service,  where  I  might 
have  been  a  misfit,  but  in  the  Congregational 
Church  to  a  congregation  which  filled  all  the 
pews  and  sat  on  the  floor  in  the  aisles.  The 
notion  somewhat  widely  circulated  that  Mr. 
Moody  was  narrow-minded,  and  in  his  methods 
mechanical,  was  due  probably  less  to  the  malice 
of  enemies  than  to  the  ignorance  of  the  public 
misled  by  the  folly  of  some  of  his  defenders.  He 
habitually  refused  to  defend  himself. 

A  more  striking  illustration  of  this  breadth  of 
208 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

spiritual  sympathy  is  afforded  by  two  incidents 
narrated  by  Mr.  Paul  Moody: 

Mr.  McKay,  who  went  with  us  through  Palestine,  was 
converted  late  in  life,  when  he  was  middle-aged;  for 
a  few  years  was  a  Protestant,  then  became  a  Christian 
Scientist,  and  finally  went  over  to  Catholicism.  His  one 
desire  was  to  get  my  father  to  come  over  also.  He 
arranged  a  meeting  between  Archbishop  Corrigan  and 
my  father.  They  had  a  conference,  and  it  is  said  that  they 
prayed  together.  After  this  meeting  with  the  Bishop  in 
Chicago  I  had  a  number  of  Catholics  tell  me  that  they 
always  felt  that  he  was  going  to  come  over  to  the  Church 
because  he  was  so  sympathetic  with  them.  Later  he  gave 
a  substantial  donation  to  the  Catholic  Church  in  Northfield 
and  also  an  organ,  and  the  dear  old  pin-head  people  at 
tacked  him  in  print  and  otherwise.  For  years  afterward 
he  received  letters  saying,  particularly  those  from  England, 
that  he  had  been  fellowshipping  anti-Christ  and  they  con 
signed  him  to  the  outermost  hell.  He  chuckled  over  these. 
When  we  rebuilt  our  Congregational  Church  in  Northfield, 
the  Catholics  in  the  town  turned  in  and  hauled  all  the 
stones  free  of  charge  as  their  contribution. 

Mr.  Moody  was  too  catholic  ever  to  become 
a  member  of  the  Catholic  Church.  But  his 
fellowship  with  the  priests  of  that  Church  ought 
not  to  surprise  us.  For  the  message  of  this 
unordained  preacher  in  the  newest  of  the  Protes 
tant  churches  and  the  message  of  the  Apostoli- 
cally  ordained  archbishop  in  the  oldest  Church 
in  Christendom  was  the  same:  Divine  for- 

209 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

giveness  for  the  past  and  divine  strength  for  the 
future. 

I  say  nothing  in  this  paper  about  Mr.  Moody's 
establishment  of  the  Northfield  Schools,  though 
that  is  in  some  respects  the  greatest  piece  of  work 
he  ever  did.  But  here  I  am  sketching  Mr.  Moody 
the  Evangelist.  The  work  of  an  evangelist  he 
always  regarded  as  the  greatest  of  all  forms  of  ser 
vice,  the  work  of  the  ministry  as  a  cramping  and 
confining  occupation.  He  urged  his  son  not  to 
go  into  the  ministry  but  to  become  an  evangelist. 
He  had  a  great  admiration  for  Phillips  Brooks 
and  was  always  sorry  for  him  because  he  could  not 
be  an  evangelist.  He  had  a  great  affection  for 
Anson  Phelps  Stokes  and  Henry  Sloan  Coffin, 
and  wanted  them  not  to  go  into  the  pastorate 
but  to  prepare  themselves  for  an  evangelistic 
ministry.  He  made  a  vigorous  endeavour  to  per 
suade  Henry  Ward  Beecher  to  leave  his  church, 
at  least  for  a  season,  and  join  him  in  an  evange 
listic  mission.  He  was  not  interested  in  teaching 
a  system  of  theology;  he  was  interested  in  induc 
ing  men  to  accept  God's  gift  of  a  divine  life. 

Mr.  Moody  died  in  1889.  The  radical  changes 
in  theological  thought  which  had  begun  before 
his  death  have  continued  since.  They  will 
always  continue.  Theology,  if  it  is  a  living 
thought,  will  be,  must  be,  a  progressive  thought. 
But  religion,  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man, 

210 


DWIGHT  LYMAN  MOODY 

the  life  of  faith  and  hope  and  love,  the  life  of 
doing  justly,  loving  mercy,  and  walking  humbly 
with  God,  the  life  of  accepting  his  forgiveness  for 
the  past  and  of  devoting  ourselves  in  joyous  self- 
sacrifice  to  his  service  in  the  future,  remains  to 
day  what  it  was  when  Abraham  obeyed  the  voice 
of  God  and  went  out  not  knowing  whither  he 
went.  For  myself,  I  believe  neither  in  the 
authority  of  the  ecclesiastical  organization  with 
the  Church-man,  nor  in  the  infallibility  of  the 
Book  with  Mr.  Moody.  The  authority  to  pro 
nounce  absolution  and  remission  for  the  sins  that 
are  past  and  to  proffer  this  gift  of  life  to  fulfil 
the  aspirations  of  the  soul  for  the  future,  I  be 
lieve  to  be  spiritual,  not  ecclesiastical  nor  tradi 
tional,  and  to  belong  equally  to  every  one  who 
has  received  such  absolution  and  remission  and 
such  gift  of  spiritual  life.  But  I  am  sure  that 
if  we  of  the  so-called  liberal  faith  hope  to  retain 
in  these  more  liberal  days  the  attractive  power 
of  the  Church,  we  can  do  it  only  by  holding  fast 
to  the  great  spiritual  fact  that  in  the  God  whom 
Jesus  has  declared  to  us  there  is  abundant  for 
giveness  for  all  the  past,  and  an  abundant  life 
for  all  the  future;  and  this  we  must  affirm  not 
as  a  theological  opinion,  to  be  defended  by  philo 
sophical  arguments  as  a  rational  hypothesis, 
but  as  an  assured  fact,  historically  certified  by 
the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  Christ  and  confirmed 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

out  of  the  mouth  of  many  witnesses  by  the  ex 
perience  of  Christ's  disciples  and  followers  in  all 
churches  and  in  every  age.  If  we  fail  to  do  this, 
men  will  desert  our  ministry  for  Romanism, 
Anglicanism,  or  the  old  orthodoxy,  or,  in  despair 
of  spiritual  life  in  any  quarter,  will  desert  all 
that  ministers  to  the  higher  life  and  live  a  wholly 
material  life,  alternating  between  restless,  un 
satisfied  desire  and  stolid  self -content.  And  the 
fault  and  the  folly  will  be  ours  more  even  than 
theirs. 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER, 
PROPHET  OF  THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

IT  IS  difficult  to  realize  the  condition  in  which 
the  old  Puritanism  had  left  the  churches  of 
New  England  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  There  were  no  missionary  societies, 
home  or  foreign;  no  Young  Men's  or  Young 
Women's  Christian  Associations;  no  anti-slavery, 
temperance,  or  other  reform  societies.  Yale 
College  had  only  four  professing  Christians  in  its 
student  body  and  had  two  Tom  Paine  societies. 
Many  causes  have  combined  to  overthrow  the 
theological  system  which  produced  this  moral 
and  spiritual  decadence.  Chief  among  them 
were  four  Puritan  divines  leading  without  con 
scious  cooperation  a  revolt  against  it:  William 
Ellery  Channing,  who  taught  the  essential  good 
ness  of  man  and  interpreted  sin  as  a  curable  dis 
ease;  Charles  G.  Finney,  who  taught  that  man 
was  a  free  moral  agent,  and  therefore  ought  to 
repent  of  his  sins;  Horace  Bushnell,  who  applied 
the  doctrine  of  development  to  religion  and 
taught  that  sin  is  not  natural  but  unnatural;  and 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who  taught  that  God 
treats  men,  not  collectively  as  a  king  treats  the 

213 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

community,  but  individually  as  a  father  treats 
his  children.  The  difference  between  the  old  and 
the  new,  the  Puritanism  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury  and  the  Puritanism  of  the  twentieth  cen 
tury,  is  a  difference  between  a  religion  of  law  and 
a  religion  of  freedom — a  religion  that  is  artificial 
and  calls  itself  supernatural  and  a  religion  that 
is  natural  because  it  is  life,  a  religion  which  with 
Lyman  Beecher  repudiates  "nateral  virtoos" 
and  a  religion  which  with  Sabatier  declares  that 
man  is  incurably  religious.  In  the  promotion 
of  this  spiritual  revolution  no  one  exercised  a 
more  profound  influence  than  Henry  Ward 
Beecher. 

He  was  singularly  equipped  for  the  mission 
which  was  given  to  him.  Professor  Fowler,  a 
famous  phrenologist  of  that  time,  correctly 
called  him  "a  splendid  animal."  He  was  not 
an  athlete;  when  I  knew  him,  he  neither  fished 
nor  hunted,  nor  took  long  tramps,  nor  rode 
horseback  for  exercise;  his  chief,  if  not  his  only, 
outdoor  game  was  croquet.  I  asked  him  once 
to  give  me  an  article  on  how  to  keep  well. 
"There  are  but  three  rules,"  he  replied:  "Eat 
well,  sleep  well,  and  laugh  well."  I  wonder  if  he 
got  them  from  Robert  Burton,  the  author  of 
"The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,"  who  is  reported 
by  one  of  his  admirers  as  saying:  "There  are 
only  three  doctors  to  be  really  trusted — Doctor 

214 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

Merryman,  Doctor  Diet,  and  Doctor  Quiet." 
They  were  Mr.  Beecher's  doctors,  and  he  followed 
their  directions  habitually  and  conscientiously. 

He  not  only  slept  well,  he  scrupulously  main 
tained  periods  of  rest.  He  had,  says  his  inti 
mate  friend,  Rossiter  W.  Raymond,  "three  dis 
tinct  mental  states — the  passive  or  resting,  the 
receptive  and  inquiring  or  filling  up,  and  the 
spontaneously  active  or  giving  forth  state." 
That  he  was  so  full  of  superfluous  energy  in  the 
giving  out  state  was  largely  due  to  his  con 
scientious  maintenance  of  hours  for  resting  as 
well  as  for  receiving.  "In  the  resting  state 
he  loved  to  be  alone  with  birds  or  flowers  or 
precious  stones  or  pictures — things  that  asked  no 
questions  and  called  for  no  active  reciprocities." 

He  was  full-blooded;  for  that  reason  eschewed 
the  red  meat.  A  rich  arterial  system  may  not 
cause  an  emotional  nature,  but  generally  accom 
panies  one  that,  like  Mr.  Beecher's,  is  both  emo 
tional  and  demonstrative.  His  religion  was  not  a 
theology,  it  was  the  spontaneous  outflow  of  his 
whole  being.  His  beliefs  rested  not  upon  argu 
ment  but  upon  experience.  He  has  given  a  char 
acteristic  description  of  "that  blessed  morning  of 
May  when  it  pleased  God  to  reveal  to  my  wander 
ing  soul  that  it  was  His  nature  to  love  a  man  in  his 
sins  for  the  sake  of  helping  him  out  of  them;  .  .  . 
that  He  was  a  Being  not  made  mad  by  sin,  but 

215 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

sorry;  that  He  was  not  furious  with  wrath 
toward  the  sinner,  but  pitied  him — in  short,  that 
He  felt  toward  me  as  my  mother  felt  toward  me, 
to  whose  eyes  my  wrong-doing  brought  tears, 
who  never  pressed  me  so  close  to  her  as  when  I 
had  done  wrong,  and  who  would  fain  with  her 
yearning  love  lift  me  out  of  trouble."  From 
that  day  to  his  death  his  faith  was  in  a  human 
God,  a  Spirit  interpreted  to  us  through  our  own 
spirits,  and  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the  personifica 
tion  in  human  history  of  this  invisible  Spirit. 
Criticized  for  preaching  in  Theodore  Parker's 
pulpit,  he  replied:  "Could  Theodore  Parker 
worship  my  God? — Christ  Jesus  is  his  name. 
All  that  there  is  of  God  to  me  is  bound  up  in  that 
name.  A  dim  and  shadowy  effluence  rises  from 
Christ,  and  that  I  am  taught  to  call  the  Father. 
A  yet  more  tenuous  and  invisible  film  of  thought 
arises,  and  that  is  the  Holy  Spirit.  .  .  . 
But  Christ  stands  my  manifest  God.  All  I  know 
is  of  him  and  in  him." 

This  combination  of  an  emotional  nature  and 
faith  in  an  Incarnate  divinity  on  whom  he  could 
freely  bestow  it  endowed  him  with  a  passionate 
piety.  Its  nature  will  be  best  interpreted  by  two 
incidents  in  his  life. 

In  1877  he  preached  a  sermon  which  was 
subsequently  published  in  the  Christian  Union.* 

^Christian  Union,  Vol.  XVI,  No.  26,  p.  582  (December  26, 1877). 

216 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

I  believe,  though  I  am  not  sure,  for  he  never  told 
me,  that  it  was  called  forth  by  a  visit  made  the 
day  before  upon  a  mother  whose  son  had  died 
without  any  evidence  of  evangelical  conversion, 
and  who  was  almost  crazed  by  the  belief  that  he 
had  been  consigned  to  hell.  This  sermon  con 
tained  the  following  paragraph: 

If  now  you  tell  me  that  this  great  mass  of  men,  because 
they  had  not  the  knowledge  of  God,  went  to  heaven,  I  say 
that  the  inroad  of  such  a  vast  amount  of  mud  swept  into 
heaven  would  be  destructive  of  its  purity;  and  I  cannot 
accept  that  view.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  say  that  they 
went  to  hell,  then  you  make  an  infidel  of  me;  for  I  do  swear, 
by  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  his  groans,  by  his  tears,  and 
by  the  wounds  in  his  hands  and  in  his  side,  that  I  will  never 
let  go  of  the  truth  that  the  nature  of  God  is  to  suffer  for 
others  rather  than  to  make  them  suffer.  If  I  lose  every 
thing  else,  I  will  stand  on  the  sovereign  idea  that  God  so 
loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  own  son  to  die  for  it  rather 
than  it  should  die.  Tell  me  that  back  of  Christ  there  is  a 
God  who  for  unnumbered  centuries  has  gone  on  creating 
men  and  sweeping  them  like  dead  flies — nay,  like  living 
ones — into  hell,  is  to  ask  me  to  worship  a  being  as  much 
worse  than  the  conception  of  any  mediaeval  devil  as  can 
be  imagined;  but  I  will  not  worship  the  devil,  though  he 
should  come  dressed  in  royal  robes  and  sit  on  the  throne 
of  Jehovah. 

For  this  sermon  he  was  bitterly  attacked  by 
theological  critics.  He  was  "a  Universalist," 
"a  heretic,"  "irreverent,"  "a  blasphemer." 

217 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

Talking  with  me  afterward,  he  said:  "When 
I  read  the  horrible  caricatures  of  my  God  by 
ministers  of  the  Church  in  some  of  their  sermons, 
I  understand  how  the  Hebrew  prophets  felt 
toward  the  pagan  religions.  I  can't  stand  it; 
something  has  to  give  way."  Of  course  at  this 
distance  of  time  I  cannot  vouch  for  the  verbal 
accuracy  of  my  report;  but  the  phrase  "some 
thing  has  to  give  way"  has  remained  in  my 
memory  ever  since.  Irreverent?  It  was  the 
passionate  reverence  of  a  son  that  broke  over  all 
restraints  in  his  flaming  indignation  at  the  pagan 
misrepresentations  of  his  Father. 

The  other  incident  was  radically  different, 
but  it  none  the  less  indicates  Mr.  Beecher's  for- 
getfulness  of  self  and  emotional  absorption  in 
his  Master  at  times  when  one  might  at  least  an 
ticipate  a  divided  interest. 

In  the  summer  of  1874  an  investigation  on 
behalf  of  Plymouth  Church  of  certain  charges 
against  Mr.  Beecher's  moral  character  was  con 
ducted  by  a  special  committee  of  six  gentle 
men  of  the  highest  character  and  some  of  them 
of  national  reputation.  They  presented  on 
August  28th  their  report,  which  was  wholly 
favourable  to  Mr.  Beecher's  Christian  character 
and  integrity.  When  Mr.  Beecher  returned  at 
the  close  of  his  summer  vacation,  expecting 
to  meet  his  people  in  the  usual  Friday  even- 

218 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

ing  prayer-meeting,  he  found  assembled  a 
throng  which  the  lecture-room  could  not  con 
tain,  and  which  therefore  by  a  kind  of  spontan 
eous  movement  had  adjourned  into  the  church 
audience  room.  Mr.  Beecher  at  first  insisted 
that  the  meeting  should  be  held,  as  usual,  in 
the  lecture-room,  but  finally,  convinced  that  the 
lecture-room  would  not  contain  one  half  of  those 
present,  he  reluctantly  consented  to  the  transfer 
which  had  been  made.  When  he  entered  the 
crowded  church,  he  was  greeted  with  demonstra 
tions  of  enthusiastic  attachment  by  his  people,  and 
an  extemporized  choir  sang  an  anthem,  the  words 
of  which,  if  I  ever  knew  them,  I  have  forgotten. 
When  the  choir  began  this  anthem,  Mr.  Beecher 
retreated  from  the  platform  and  did  not  return 
until  the  anthem  was  concluded.  Then,  re 
suming  his  seat  upon  the  platform  which  con 
stitutes  the  pulpit  in  Plymouth  Church,  he  said 
in  a  quiet  voice  full  of  suppressed  emotion  some 
thing  like  this :  "  We  have  not  come  here  to  look 
or  to  be  looked  at.  We  have  come  to  worship 
Him  whose  name  is  above  every  name,"  and 
then,  taking  his  hymn-book  in  his  hand,  read 
the  hymn: 

When  I  survey  the  wonderous  cross, 
On  which  the  Prince  of  Glory  died, 

My  richest  gain  I  count  but  loss, 

And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride. 

219 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

This  hymn  he  made  his  own  expression  of  con 
secration  to  the  crucified  Christ,  and  when  he 
had  finished,  the  assemblage  was  converted  from 
an  audience  of  hero-worshippers  to  a  congregation 
of  Christ-worshippers.  A  more  startling  illus 
tration  of  the  power  of  a  great  soul  inspired  by 
a  clear  vision  and  a  divine  passion  I  have  never 
witnessed. 

Someone  has  defined  genius  as  "a  capacity 
for  hard  work."  That  is  exactly  what  it  is  not. 
I  do  not  venture  to  define  genius,  but  I  am  very 
certain  that  in  all  geniuses  there  is  one  common 
quality:  spontaneity.  Most  of  us  are  like  a 
pump — we  must  work  to  bring  our  thoughts  to 
the  surface.  But  there  are  occasional  men  who 
are  like  a  bubbling  spring — the  ideas  rise  to  the 
surface  spontaneously,  and  if  there  is  no  one  to 
catch  them  they  flow  off  and  are  lost.  This 
quality  of  spontaneity  is  charactistic  of  every 
man  of  genius.  Whether  he  is  orator,  poet, 
artist,  novelist,  or  musician,  the  truth  he  utters, 
the  picture  he  paints,  the  story  he  tells,  the 
music  he  writes  seems  to  him  to  be  given  to  him. 
It  comes  to  him  unsought.  He  may  spend  much 
time  in  polishing  the  diamond;  but  he  does  not 
make  the  diamond.  If  he  is  an  executive  an 
inward  voice  seems  to  counsel  his  action  and  he 
cannot  always  explain  to  others  the  reason  for 
his  course.  This  spontaneity  was  very  distinctly 

220 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

characteristic  of  Mr.  Beecher.  The  fact  is  very 
clearly  indicated  by  what  he  once  told  me  of  his 
method  of  pulpit  preparation. 

"I  always  have,"  he  said,  "floating  in  my  head 
half-formed  thoughts  I  would  like  to  utter. 
Saturday  is  my  day  of  rest.  I  am  apt  to  spend 
it  on  my  farm  at  Peekskill  under  the  trees.  I 
sleep  soundly  Saturday  night;  I  sleep  vicariously 
for  my  congregation.  After  breakfast  I  go  into 
my  study,  feel  of  my  different  themes,  the  one 
that  is  ripe  I  pluck,  select  my  text,  organize  my 
thought,  and  go  into  the  pulpit  with  my  theme 
fresh,  my  mind  and  heart  full  of  it."  In  his 
earlier  ministry  he  would  write  and  read  parts 
of  his  sermon  and  extemporize  parts.  In  his 
later  ministry  his  notes  were  mere  hints.  These 
were  sometimes  so  fragmentary  as  to  be  meaning 
less  to  any  one  but  himself,  but  sometimes  these 
rough  fragments  were  as  thought-provoking  as 
if  he  had  wrought  them  with  care.  There  lie 
before  me  as  I  write  the  manuscript  notes  of 
one  of  his  sermons,  so  rough  that  I  cannot 
determine  the  proper  order  of  the  sheets  or 
find  either  text  or  indication  of  peroration. 
But  there  are  two  hints  worth  preserving  as 
epigrams : 

I.     Consider  your  Past  a  Treasury.     What  has  been 
laid  up  in  it? 

III.     What  are  called  Repentances,  Reformations,  are 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

New  Growths  or  New  Leaves;  do  not  change  old  evils — 
but  overlay  with  new  growths. 


Sometimes  his  mind  would  refuse  to  work  and 
he  had  to  make  the  sermon.  Then  was  he  least 
successful.  Sometimes  a  hint,  an  intellectual 
jar,  would  wake  him  up;  then  he  was  often  at 
his  best.  "I  remember,"  says  Doctor  Raymond, 
"that  at  one  of  his  last  public  appearances — the 
dinner  of  the  Polytechnic  Alumni,  in  Brooklyn- 
he  whispered  to  me  as  I  passed  behind  his  chair, 
T  can't  say  anything  to-night;  I  am  perfectly 
empty.'  'Never  mind,'  I  replied;  "the  boys  are 
glad  to  see  you.  Thank  them  for  their  greeting, 
anyhow,  and  sit  down  again,  if  you  like.'  But 
by  the  time  he  was  called  upon,  after  several  had 
spoken,  he  had  found  enough  to  say;  and  the 
mingled  humour  and  eloquence  of  his  address 
that  night  will  not  soon  be  forgotten." 

I  do  not  recommend  young  ministers  to  adopt 
Mr.  Beecher's  methods.  Imitation  never  yet 
made  an  original  thinker.  We  are  sometimes 
exhorted  to  follow  in  Christ's  footsteps.  But 
we  cannot  do  it.  We  must  follow  him  as  the 
bird  follows  its  leader,  making  its  own  path 
through  the  air.  But  I  am  quite  sure  that  Mr. 
Beecher's  principles  are  well  worth  careful  study 
by  all  men  engaged  in  creative  work.  We  all 
recognize  the  necessity  of  the  two  periods — the 

222 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

giving  out  and  the  filling  up.  But  not  many  recog 
nize  the  equal  necessity  for  the  resting  period. 
Physical  rest  is  the  period  of  physical  digestion 
when  the  food  we  have  taken  becomes  flesh  and 
blood.  Intellectual  rest  is  equally  necessary  for 
intellectual  digestion,  when  we  transform  thought 
into  experience ;  without  it  the  preacher  or  author 
is  simply  a  reporter  of  other  men's  thoughts. 
I  am  not  a  psychologist;  but  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  unconscious  cerebration  is  not  the 
least  valuable  part  of  our  intellectual  activity. 

Whether  true  as  a  general  principle  or  not  I 
am  sure  that  his  conscientious  observance  of  rest 
periods  was  one  secret  of  Mr.  Beecher's  orator 
ical  power.  Rarely  was  he  a  reporter  of  other 
men's  thoughts.  He  preached,  not  theories,  but 
experiences.  I  called  on  him  once  with  a  young 
man  who  was  preparing  for  the  ministry.  "I 
am  studying  theology,"  said  the  student,  "at 
-  Theological  Seminary."  "No  objection  to 
that,"  said  Mr.  Beecher,  "if  you  don't  believe 
it." 

Mr.  Beecher  was  a  pragmatist  without  know 
ing  it;  I  doubt  whether  the  term  was  invented 
then.  But  he  tested  all  theological  theories  by 
the  question:  Does  it  work  well?  "Calvinism," 
he  said  to  me,  "is  like  a  churn:  it  turns  out  a  little 
very  good  butter,  but  it  wastes  a  lot  of  butter 
milk."  He  took  his  theories  wherever  he  found 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

them,  quite  careless  where  they  came  from. 
For  example,  his  theory  of  the  divinity  of  Christ 
he  took  from  Swedenborg — the  divine  spirit  in 
a  human  body.  Evolution  he  accepted  because 
of  its  religious  value;  it  threw  light  on  prob 
lems  which  had  perplexed  the  Christian  Church 
and  which  the  current  theology  left  in  darkness. 
It  was  said  of  him  that  he  was  no  theologian.  It 
was  true.  His  religious  teaching  could  be  reduced 
to  philosophic  forms,  but  he  was  not  interested  to 
reduce  it.  Asked  once  for  his  theology,  he  re 
plied:  "Ask  Abbott;  he  knows."  Only  late  in 
life,  and  then  to  correct  misunderstandings 
among  his  own  brother  ministers,  did  he  even 
attempt  to  formulate  his  theological  beliefs. 
For  his  preaching  was  not  a  product  of  his 
theology.  His  preaching  was  always  an  endeav 
our  to  meet  human  needs.  "I  never  in  my  life," 
he  once  said,  "shot  an  arrow  at  a  venture.  I 
have  always  aimed  at  a  mark,  though  I  have 
very  often  aimed  at  one  bird  and  brought  down 
another."  His  theology  was  always  subject  to 
correction;  it  was  tested  and  corrected  by  life. 
Was  Mr.  Beecher  a  scholar?  The  answer  de 
pends  upon  the  meaning  attached  to  that  some 
what  ambiguous  word.  But  if  George  Crabb  is 
right,  if  to  study  means  to  desire  eagerly  to  learn, 
Mr.  Beecher  was  a  student.  One  more  eager  to 
learn  I  never  knew.  The  learning  which  in- 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

terested  him  was  that  which  could  be  directly 
applied  in  practical  life.  If  he  had  been  a 
scientist,  he  would  have  been  a  student  not  of 
pure  science  but  of  applied  science — an  Edison, 
not  an  Einstein. 

As  a  student  he  had  extraordinary  facility  in 
the  use  of  books.  "One  does  not  read  a  book 
through,"  he  once  said  to  me.  "You  read  a 
book  as  you  eat  a  fish :  cut  off  the  tail,  cut  off  the 
head,  cut  off  the  fins,  take  out  the  backbone,  and 
there  is  a  little  meat  left  which  you  eat  because 
it  nourishes  you."  He  made  constant  and 
systematic  use  of  phrenology,  chiefly  as  a  con 
venient  system  for  the  classification  of  mental 
and  moral  phenomena.  I  took  over  to  him  one 
day  a  new  volume  in  philosophy  based  on  that 
system.  I  wanted  to  get  his  estimate  upon  it. 
He  took  the  book  with  him  to  the  dinner  table 
and  read  while  he  ate,  turning  over  the  leaves 
with  remarks  such  as:  "Nonsense!  . 
Of  course.  .  .  .  Everybody  knows  that.  .  .  . 
Borrowed  from  Spurzheim.  .  .  .  That's 
new  and  well  worth  thinking  about."  At 
the  end  of  the  meal  he  had  finished  the  book 
and  handed  it  back  to  me  with  a  ten-minute 
comment  which  made  the  basis  of  my  editorial 
review. 

But  his  use  of  books  was  not  always  like  that. 
He  habitually  used  the  Greek,  his  favourite  com- 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

mentary  being  Alford's  Greek  Testament,  which 
I  still  think  is,  for  the  practical  use  of  the 
preacher,  the  best  commentary  we  have  on  the 
NewTestament,betterthan either  Meyer  or  "The 
International."  He  studied  Curtis's  "History 
of  the  Constitution,"  and  his  loyalty  to  that  doc 
ument,  because  "there  is  health  in  it,"  set  him 
apart  from  the  Abolitionists,  whose  leader,  Wil 
liam  Lloyd  Garrison,  pronounced  it  "a  covenant 
with  death  and  an  agreement  with  hell."  His 
democratic  principles  were  grounded  on  a  careful 
study  of  fundamental  authorities  such  as  De 
Tocqueville  and  Francis  Lieber,  with  both  of 
whom  he  was  familiar.  I  do  not  think  he  used 
the  Hebrew  language;  but  if  he  wanted  to  get 
at  the  exact  meaning  of  an  Old  Testament  text 
he  went  to  his  friend  Doctor  Conant,  a  well-known 
Hebrew  scholar,  who  lived  only  a  few  blocks 
away.  So  he  went  to  his  brother,  Edward 
Beecher,  for  information  on  scholastic  theology 
when  he  wanted  such  information,  and  to  his 
friend  Rossiter  W.  Raymond  for  information 
respecting  the  scientific  aspects  of  evolution. 
But  he  studied  the  writings  of  Darwin,  Spencer, 
Tyndall,  and  Huxley,  and  it  was  partly  as  the 
result  of  his  influence  that  the  republication  of 
their  writings  in  this  country  was  brought  about. 
In  his  recreative  reading  he  was  more  systematic 
than  most  of  us  are.  I  think  that  he  read 

226 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

modern  novels  and  current  magazines  but  little. 
Instead  he  laid  out  early  in  the  year  three  or  four 
series  of  authors — for  example :  for  fiction,  George 
Eliot;  for  poetry,  Tennyson;  for  history,  Green; 
for  essays,  Milton;  for  drama,  the  Greek  tragedies 
in  translation — and  then  read  as  the  mood  in 
vited  him.  As  a  result,  at  the  end  of  the  season 
he  had  made  a  real  acquaintance  of  some  worth 
while  authors. 

His  habit  of  getting  knowledge  from  all  sorts 
of  experts,  in  all  sorts  of  places,  is  too  well  known 
to  need  exposition  here.  A  striking  but  not 
singular  illustration  is  afforded  by  his  getting 
acquainted  with  a  professional  gambler,  in  the 
early  years  of  his  ministry,  in  Indianapolis,  and 
using  his  information  so  effectively  in  a  graphic 
picture  of  the  methods  of  the  fraternity  that  a 
young  man,  thinking  to  crack  a  joke  at  the  ex 
pense  of  the  preacher,  asked  him:  "Mr.  Beecher, 
how  could  you  describe  a  gambling-hell  so  ac 
curately  if  you  had  never  been  in  one?"  and  got 
for  reply:  "How  could  you  know  it  was  accurate 
if  you  had  never  been  in  one?" 

The  impression  that  Mr.  Beecher  was  not  a 
scholar  was  partly  due  to  a  habit  both  natural 
and  deliberately  cultivated:  he  studied  his  theme 
until  he  believed  he  had  made  himself  master  of 
it,  then  in  public  speech  he  gave  himself  to  the 
exposition,  illustration,  and  enforcement  of  what 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

he  believed  to  be  the  truth  with  absolute  in 
tellectual,  imaginative,  and  emotional  abandon. 
He  gave  weeks  to  the  careful  study  of  the  issues, 
personal  and  political,  involved  in  the  Elaine- 
Cleveland  campaign;  but  when  his  mind  was 
made  up,  he  took  the  stump  for  Cleveland, 
without  reserve,  qualification,  or  limitation. 

He  was  a  friend  of  man,  and  most  of  all  a 
friend  to  men  who  needed  him  and  whom  he 
thought  he  could  serve.  He  was  curiously  un 
suspicious,  always  saw  the  good  in  men,  and 
sometimes  imagined  it  when  it  did  not  exist. 
He  obeyed  too  literally  and  with  some  disastrous 
consequences  the  saying:  "Love  thinketh  no 
evil."  He  had  many  devoted  friends  who  would 
gladly  have  laid  down  their  lives  for  him;  but, 
like  all  men  of  genius,  he  was  at  times  a  lonely 
man.  He  had  a  tinge  of  melancholy,  such  as, 
I  suspect,  all  idealists  have  at  times,  who  in 
stinctively  contrast  their  aspirations  with  the 
realities  of  life.  He  generally  kept  this  melan 
choly  to  himself,  though  sometimes  one  felt  it 
in  his  public  speech,  and  even  more  in  his 
prayers.  He  gave  me  a  glimpse  of  it  once. 
"My  father,"  he  said,  "wrote  his  sermons  with 
the  angel  of  hope  looking  over  his  shoulder  and 
inspiring  his  pen.  I  have  never  expected  to 
succeed.  Success  has  come  to  me  always  as  a 
surprise." 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

He  began  life  as  an  individualist,  and  while  in 
the  West  conducted  with  great  effectiveness 
some  revivals  of  religion  in  the  old-fashioned 
method.  He  brought  with  him  to  the  East  the 
spirit  of  eagerness  for  immediate  personal  re 
sults,  and  some  remarkable  revivals  of  religion 
followed  his  preaching.  But  his  point  of  view 
gradually  changed.  After  the  Civil  War  Mr. 
Moody  once  urged  him  to  leave  his  pulpit,  at 
least  for  a  time,  and  join  him  in  an  evangelical 
mission.  In  speaking  to  me  about  this  invi 
tation  afterward  he  expressed  in  the  warmest 
terms  his  affection  and  admiration  for  Mr. 
Moody,  but  added:  "We  could  not  work  to 
gether.  For  Mr.  Moody  thinks  this  is  a  lost 
world,  and  he  is  trying  to  save  as  many  as  pos 
sible  from  the  wreck;  I  think  Jesus  Christ  has 
come  to  save  the  world,  and  I  am  trying  to  help 
him  save  it."  When  he  definitely  adopted  this 
theory  I  do  not  know,  but  I  am  quite  sure  that  he 
acted  on  it  long  before  he  consciously  adopted  it. 

It  was  this  principle  that  made  him  a  re 
former.  When  he  was  criticized  for  preaching 
politics  and  told  that  he  ought  to  confine  him 
self  to  the  Gospel,  his  answer  was:  "I  hold  that 
it  is  a  Christian  minister's  duty  not  only  to 
preach  the  Gospel  of  the  New  Testament  with 
out  reservation,  but  to  apply  its  truths  to  any 
question  that  relates  to  the  welfare  of  men." 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

Whoever  acts  on  that  principle  will  always  be 
ahead  of  his  age,  because  Jesus  Christ  is  ahead  of 
all  ages;  the  world  has  not  yet  caught  up  with 
Christ.  It  made  Henry  Ward  Beecher  an  anti- 
slavery  preacher  in  Indianapolis  before  he  came 
to  Brooklyn  in  1847;  and  in  Indiana,  when  I  was 
there  during  the  Civil  War,  abolition  was  more 
bitterly  and  more  widely  abhorred  than  slavery. 
It  made  him  a  temperance  advocate  when  drink 
ing  habits  were  still  common  and  prohibition 
was  unknown.  It  made  him  heartily  indorse 
Gavazzi  and  Kossuth  in  their  unsuccessful  at 
tempts  for  the  liberation  of  Italy  and  Hungary. 
It  made  him  an  advocate  of  woman  suffrage; 
he  believed  in  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  and  he 
contended  that  equality  in  character  involved 
equality  in  political  power.  It  gave  him  an  in 
spired  courage  in  his  unplanned  mission  to 
England  in  1863,  and  inspired  his  appeal  to  the 
conscience  of  the  plain  people  of  England  in  five 
ever-memorable  addresses,  which  did  so  much 
to  defeat  the  endeavours  of  the  aristocracy  to 
lend  England's  moral  support  to  the  Southern 
Confederacy. 

Mr.  John  R.  Howard  has  edited  with  an  ad 
mirable  introduction  a  volume  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
"Patriotic  Addresses."  The  reader  of  this  vol 
ume  will  find  in  them  two  characteristics.  They 
are  not  merely  political;  they  do  not  discuss 

230 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

merely  questions  of  economic  expediency  or 
political  policy.  Always  by  their  essential 
spirit,  though  not  always  in  express  terms,  they 
consider  the  relation  of  the  subjects  discussed  to 
the  kingdom  of  God.  And  they  are  generally,  I 
think  always,  free  from  the  bitterness  of  in 
vective  which  so  often  marred  the  addresses  of 
both  the  temperance  and  the  anti-slavery  re 
formers  of  that  period.  In  one  of  these  ad 
dresses  Mr.  Beecher  says:  "I  have  not  meant 
to  be  severe.  If  I  should  meet  a  slaveholder  in 
conversation,  I  should  say  just  the  same.  He 
might  reply :  'I  don't  believe  all  you  do,  but  you 
say  what  you  think,  and  I  like  you;  you  are  no 
doughface."  What  Mr.  Beecher  imagined  a 
slaveholder  saying  I  heard  one  say.  He  was 
with  me  in  a  pew  in  Plymouth  Church  when  Mr. 
Beecher  pictured  in  his  sermon  a  slave  escaping 
from  his  chains,  crossing  the  Ohio  River,  and 
finding  in  Ohio  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  waiting 
to  catch  him  there.  "Has  he  a  right  to  flee?" 
cried  Mr.  Beecher.  "Shall  I  help  to  turn  him 
back  to  slavery  again?  If  he  were  my  son  and 
did  not  seek  liberty,  I  would  write  across  his 
name,  'Disowned."  And  the  slaveholder  sit 
ting  at  my  side  as  we  went  out  from  the  church 
said  to  me,  "I  cannot  agree  with  all  your  preacher 
said,  but  he  is  a  great  and  good  man." 

In  his  "Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching"  he  said 
231 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

to  the  students:  "Never  preach  two  sermons 
alike  if  you  can  help  it."  He  rarely  did.  But 
he  always  expressed  himself.  His  sermon  was 
always  an  echo  of  his  own  experience,  and  was 
recognized  by  his  congregation  to  be  an  inter 
pretation  of  his  own  life.  The  sermon  might  be 
a  Biblical  exposition,  or  a  devotional  meditation, 
or  a  philosophical  essay,  or  a  chapter  in  ethics, 
but,  whatever  it  might  be  in  form,  in  its  spirit  it 
was  always  true  to  himself.  And  this  inimitable 
spirit  of  life  was  the  secret  of  his  power  as  a  man, 
not  merely  as  a  preacher.  His  life  illustrated 
his  saying,  "You  cannot  pray  cream  and  live 
skim  milk." 

For  Mr.  Beecher  preached  as  he  lived  and  lived 
as  he  preached.  The  faith  that  gave  power  to 
his  sermons  controlled  him  in  his  life,  and  because 
it  controlled  him  in  his  life,  gave  power  to 
his  preaching.  His  faith  in  his  fellowmen  was 
latent  but  always  ready  to  be  called  into  ac 
tion.  In  his  travels  he  once  came  to  a  junc 
tion  where  all  the  passengers  had  to  change  cars. 
The  passengers,  with  characteristic  eagerness 
to  get  good  seats  in  the  new  train,  were  pushing 
forward  each  one  for  himself.  Among  them  was 
a  woman  rather  poorly  dressed,  with  three  little 
children  and  several  bags,  parcels,  and  wraps, 
who  waited  timidly  her  chance.  Mr.  Beecher, 
grasping  the  hand  rail  on  each  side  of  the  car  and 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

blocking  up  all  entrance  by  his  somewhat  burly 
presence,  called  out:  "Isn't  any  gentleman  going 
to  help  this  lady  in?"  Instantly  the  mind  of  the 
crowd  was  changed.  Two  gentlemen  picked  up 
the  children,  two  others  helped  the  lady  to  the 
car  platform,  two  others  handed  up  her  bags 
and  packages.  "I  venture  the  guess,"  said  Mr. 
Beecher,  in  telling  me  the  incident,  "that  that 
poor  woman  never  before  had  so  many  cavaliers 
attending  on  her.  There's  good  will  enough  in 
the  world;  all  that  is  necessary  is  to  call  it  out." 
He  could  and  did.  But  as  he  told  me  the  in 
cident  I  had  to  confess  to  myself  that  I  could 
not  and  probably  should  not  have  tried. 

His  sympathies  were  not  confined  to  men  of 
any  race  or  creed,  social  class  or  moral  character. 
They  were  not  even  confined  to  men.  To  Paul's 
question:  "Does  God  take  care  of  our  oxen?" 
Mr.Beecher's  reply  would  have  been  "Certainly." 
He  enjoyed  flowers  and  precious  stones,  but  he 
was  fond  of  birds,  horses,  and  dogs.  When  I 
was  looking  for  my  first  parish  he  advised  me  to 
notice  what  kind  of  horses  the  farmers  drove 
when  they  came  to  town.  "  Wide-awake  teams," 
he  said,  "indicate  a  wide-awake  community." 
He  drove  a  good  pair  himself.  His  sympathy 
with  animals  in  distress,  his  readiness  to  come 
to  their  relief,  and  his  resourcefulness  are  illus 
trated  by  an  incident  told  to  me  in  a  letter  by  a 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

correspondent  which  I  cannot  better  tell  than 
in  the  words  of  the  narrator,  now  ninety  years  of 
age,  but  written  by  him  when  he  was  a  boy  in  the 
Indianapolis  Seminary.  How  Mr.  Beecher  ap- 
peaxed  on  the  scene  the  boy  does  not  tell  in  his 
composition. 

It  was  the  first  day  in  the  year  1847.  The  rain  had  been 
pouring  down  with  undescribable  fury;  as  if  the  clouds 
had  been  shedding  tears  and  thundering  their  requiem  on 
account  of  the  sad  parting  which  they  had  so  lately  taken 
of  the  "Old  Year."  Being  obliged  to  go  over  into  the 
city,  I  saddled  my  horse,  called  my  dog  Ben,  and  started 
off  (By  the  way  Ben  was  a  large  "Bulldog"  and  it  is  stated 
that  he  was  born  without  a  tail,  which  as  far  as  I  know  was 
the  truth,  for  even  at  the  time  he  was  shot  for  killing  sheep 
it  was  not  larger  than  a  hickory  nut) .  Proceeding  through 
mud  and  water  we  soon  came  to  the  creek.  There  I  by 
dint  of  getting  the  most  of  my  body  on  the  top  of  the  horse 
passed  through  unseated  by  the  tide.  But  Ben  was  not 
so  fortunate,  for  having  no  horse  to  ride  he  was  obliged  to 
swim.  We  passed  on  but  soon  came  to  another  bayou 
even  worse  than  the  former.  This  Ben  tried  to  pass  over 
on  top  of  the  fence,  but  having  arrived  about  the  middle  of 
the  fence  was  unable  either  to  return  or  proceed.  There 
he  remained  all  that  day  and  night  and  half  the  next  day. 
In  the  mean  time  I  had  gone  on,  not  knowing  what  had  de 
tained  him  and  had  it  not  been  for  Rev.  H.  Beecher,  the 
poor  dog  would  have  died.  He  made  a  raft  of  wash  tubs, 
much  in  the  Swiss-Family-Robinson  fashion,  but  this  did 
not  succeed,  for  having  launched  it,  it  turned  over  and  left 
him  floundering  in  the  water.  He  next  made  a  common 
board  raft;  but  forgot  to  make  allowance  for  the  weight  of 

234 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

the  dog,  so  that  when  he  took  him  on,  the  raft  sunk  and 
both  were  obliged  to  choose  the  alternative  sink  or  swim, 
live  or  die,  survive  or  perish.  On  reaching  the  shore  Mr.  B. 
looked  back  to  see  how  Ben  had  fared  but  to  his  sorrow 
found  that  he  had  clambered  back  to  his  old  situation. 
But  Mr.  B.  was  not  to  be  disheartened  by  these  failures, 
for  he  went  to  a  neighbouring  board  yard  and  made  a  stout 
raft  and  thus  brought  the  shivering  dog  to  shore.  Ben 
was  so  glad  to  land  on  "terra  firma"  that  he  frightened  Mrs. 
Beecher,  ran  over  the  children,  and  bedaubed  Mr.  B.  from 
head  to  foot  with  his  dirty  paws.  And  ever  after  when 
his  benefactor  would  come  to  our  house,  the  first  thing 
he  would  do  would  be  to  endeavour  to  throw  his  paws 
around  his  neck  and  embrace  him. 

Nor  were  Mr.  Beecher's  deeper  spiritual 
faiths  in  immortality  and  in  what  men  have 
called  the  impracticable  precepts  of  Jesus  Christ 
less  a  part  of  his  inward  experience  nor  less 
manifest  in  his  daily  life. 

At  a  prayer  meeting  once,  in  the  time  of  his 
greatest  prosperity  and  his  unclouded  fame,  he 
said  something  to  this  effect:  "I  am  very 
happy;  I  have  a  home  rich  in  love;  a  devoted 
people;  am  surrounded  by  my  friends;  with 
everything  to  make  me  joyful.  But  nothing 
could  give  me  greater  happiness  than  to  hear  my 
heavenly  Father  say  to  me  to-night:  'Your  work 
is  done.  You  can  come  home."  His  aged 
father,  who  was  no  longer  able  to  preach,  sitting 
directly  in  front  of  his  son,  sprang  to  his  feet 

235 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

with  a  vehement  rebuke.  "Henry,"  he  cried, 
"I  am  ashamed  of  you.  You  ought  not  to  be 
willing  to  stop.  Would  that  God  would  call 
me  back  to  go  on  with  the  war ! "  The  son  made 
some  gentle  reply,  and  called  for  a  hymn  to  close 
the  meeting.  But  the  contrast  emphasized  the 
constant  message  of  the  son  that  there  are  not 
two  worlds  but  only  one,  that  the  curtain  that 
separates  them  is  easily  brushed  aside;  that 
death  is  "friendly." 

When  some  years  later  he  was  put  on  trial 
for  what  was  more  than  his  life,  his  honour  as  a 
Christian  minister,  he  continued  preaching  every 
Sunday  morning,  refused  any  other  relief  than 
ceasing  his  public  lecturing  and  his  Sunday  even 
ing  sermons,  refused  to  talk  about  the  case  with 
any  one  but  his  lawyers,  and  refused  to  talk 
with  them  on  Saturday,  because,  as  he  said, 
'You  cannot  raise  cream  if  you  keep  the  milk 
in  the  pan  always  stirring."  And  the  people 
reported  that  never  had  his  sermons  a  deeper 
spiritual  tone.  While  his  friends,  though  their 
faith  in  him  was  never  shaken,  still  feared  for 
his  good  name,  he  maintained  an  untroubled 
mind  and  had,  I  believe,  very  rarely  a  wakeful 
night.  He  once  expressed  his  assurance  of  the 
inefficiency  of  wickedness  to  achieve  its  aims  by 
saying  to  me,  with  a  scorn  which  no  type  can 
possibly  portray:  "I  tell  you,  Abbott,  the 

236 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

name  of  the  wicked  shall  rot!"  But  when  later 
one  of  his  accusers  had  left  the  country  and  was 
living  self -exiled  in  Paris,  and  another  was  re 
ported  to  be  involved  in  business  difficulties 
and  in  danger  of  bankruptcy,  he  said  to  me,  with 
tears  in  his  eyes  and  in  his  voice:  "I  would  like 

to  lend  some  money  to and  I  think  I  could 

raise  it,  but  I  suppose  it  would  not  do.  It  would 
be  misunderstood." 

History  has  justified  his  confidence  and  illus 
trated  the  whole  of  the  text:  "The  memory  of 
the  just  is  blessed;  but  the  name  of  the  wicked 
shall  rot."  Never  in  my  lifetime,  nor  I  think 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  has  so  great  honour 
been  paid  at  death  to  a  purely  private  citizen, 
who  never  held  a  public  office  in  the  nation, 
and  never  a  higher  office  in  the  state  than  that 
of  pastor  in  a  local  church. 

He  died  from  the  breaking  of  a  blood-vessel 
in  the  brain  on  March  8,  1887.  From  the  hour 
of  his  death  until  the  day  of  his  funeral  the  flags 
in  Brooklyn  were  at  half  mast  and  the  public 
buildings  were  draped  in  token  of  the  loss  that 
the  community  had  sustained.  The  coloured 
clergymen  of  Brooklyn  expressed  the  desire  to 
attend  his  funeral  in  a  body,  which  privilege  was 
accorded  them.  The  New  York  Legislature  ap 
pointed  a  committee  to  attend  the  funeral,  and 
both  Houses  were  adjourned.  In  Brooklyn  on 

237 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  day  of  the  funeral  the  public  offices  were 
closed  and  business  was  in  a  large  measure  sus 
pended.  Plymouth  Church  could  not  contain 
the  congregation  that  gathered.  Four  other 
churches  in  the  neighbourhood  were  filled  to 
overflowing  with  men  and  women  who  had  come 
to  pay  their  respects  to  the  deceased  preacher, 
and  it  was  estimated  at  the  time  that  had  double 
the  number  of  churches  been  opened  they  would 
all  have  been  filled.  Among  those  attending 
were  several  Roman  Catholic  priests.  Not  the 
least  significant  incident  in  connection  with 
these  services  was  the  fact  that  there  was  no 
black  drapery  used  in  the  church  or  in  the  home; 
instead  were  flowers.  The  family  put  on  no 
mourning.  Mr.  Beecher  had  often  said:  "Strew 
flowers  on  my  grave,  but  let  no  heathenish  use 
of  black  be  used  as  a  token  of  sorrow  when  I 
have  passed  from  death  into  life  eternal." 
This  desire,  so  characteristic  of  the  man,  was 
faithfully  observed. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  a  great  preacher  because 
he  was  a  great  and  good  man;  pure  as  a  woman; 
simple  as  a  little  child;  frank  to  a  fault.  His 
most  intimate  friend  never  heard  from  his  lips 
a  suggestion  of  a  salacious  jest;  I  never  knew  the 
man  bold  enough  to  venture  on  one  in  his  pres 
ence.  He  was  incapable  of  deceit  or  artifice. 
He  could  conceal,  when  concealment  was  nec- 

238 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

essary,  only  by  maintaining  an  absolutely  im 
penetrable  reserve.  His  life  was  more  eloquent 
than  his  speech;  he  was  most  eloquent  when  he 
most  failed  to  say  what  he  wished  to  say.  He 
was  not  logical;  the  seer  never  is.  He  was  a 
revelator.  What  he  had  seen  in  the  closet  he 
disclosed  in  the  pulpit.  He  was  a  man  of  God 
and  walked  with  God.  These  phrases  are  so 
contaminated  with  cant  that  the  pen  shrinks 
from  writing  them.  But  they  are  phrases  full 
of  a  divine  meaning.  It  is  possible  to  walk  with 
God;  to  have  a  personal  acquaintance  with  him 
through  his  Son,  Jesus  Christ;  to  be  a  tabernacle 
for  God's  indwelling.  No  one  who  knew  Mr. 
Beecher  intimately,  in  the  varieties  of  his  ex 
perience  from  hours  of  the  lightest  merriment  to 
experiences  of  the  deepest  sorrow,  could  question 
that  this  companionship  with  God  was  the 
secret  of  his  power. 


239 


i 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS,  PROPHET  OF  THE 
SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

N  THE  spring  of  1889  I  received  the  follow 
ing  letter  from  Phillips  Brooks: 


233  Clarendon  Street,  Boston, 

May  30,  1889. 
MY  DEAR  DR.  ABBOTT  : 

Professor  Peabody  tells  me  that  there  is  some  sign  of  a 
prospect  that  you  may  join  our  Company  of  Preachers  at 
Harvard  College. 

I  cannot  help  saying  how  thoroughly  delightful  I  should 
think  it  if  such  a  thing  should  come  to  pass.  It  is  the  most 
interesting  work  that  I  have  ever  had  to  do.  I  am  sure 
that,  done  as  you  could  do  it,  it  would  be  full  of  new  value 
and  satisfaction. 

This  being  the  case — and  you  having  nothing  on  Earth 
to  do  at  present — I  dare  to  hope  that  what  the  Professor 
suggests  may  really  come.  God  grant  it! 

Ever  sincerely  yours 

PHILLIPS  BROOKS. 
REV.  DR.  LYMAN  ABBOTT. 

The  "Company  of  Preachers"  to  which  Phil 
lips  Brooks  alludes  was  a  group  of  six,  one  of 
whom  was  a  university  professor  who  had  over 
sight  of  the  religious  life  of  the  University;  the 

240 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

other  five  were  non-residents  invited  for  the 
current  year.  Each  minister  usually  preached 
for  four  Sundays,  conducted  morning  prayers 
for  four  weeks,  and  after  prayers  held  morning 
conferences  with  such  students  as  wished  to  call 
upon  him.  The  call  to  share  in  this  service  de 
lighted  me.  But  engaged  then  in  both  ministe 
rial  and  editorial  work,  I  hesitated  to  take  on  a 
new  responsibility.  Phillips  Brooks' s  letter  de 
cided  me.  From  that  time  until  the  day  of  his 
death  in  1893  I  was  a  co-worker,  though  not  con 
tinuously,  with  Phillips  Brooks  in  the  Harvard 
"Company  of  Preachers." 

I  have  known  greater  orators  than  Phillips 
Brooks.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  had  more  stops 
in  his  organ;  Daniel  Webster  was  more  massive, 
his  sentences  were  more  heavily  weighted; 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  more  persuasive — no 
utterance  of  Phillips  Brooks's  had  the  effect  on 
the  Nation  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  Cooper -Union 
address  or  the  immortality  of  his  Gettysburg 
address.  But  no  orator  I  ever  heard  was  more 
inspirational.  A  friend  of  Phillips  Brooks,  who 
knew  him  well,  admired  him  greatly,  and  pos 
sessed  rare  psychological  insight,  indicated  in  the 
one  word  ' 'abundance"  his  distinguishing  char 
acteristic.  :eYou  will  find,"  said  he,  "the  word 
'abundant'  in  almost  every  sermon:  abundant 
life,  abundant  light,  abundant  grace,  abundant 

241 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

goodness."  The  trees  of  the  Lord,  said  the 
Psalmist,  are  full.  Phillips  Brooks  was  one  of 
the  trees  of  the  Lord. 

Physically  he  was  an  impressive  specimen  of 
manhood — stood,  I  am  sure,  something  over  six 
feet  in  his  stockings  and  could  not  have  weighed 
less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  But 
he  was  not  corpulent;  had  not  the  appearance 
of  carrying  an  ounce  of  superfluous  flesh.  He 
enjoyed  marvellous  health.  Two  years  before 
his  death  he  told  me  that  he  had  never  known 
what  it  was  to  be  tired.  More's  the  pity!  If 
he  had  rested  more,  he  might  have  lived  longer. 
He  never  apparently  spared  himself;  rarely,  if 
ever,  declined  to  render  a  service  to  the  public  or 
to  a  friend  if  acceptance  was  possible;  did  not, 
I  think,  use  a  shorthand  writer  in  his  correspon 
dence  until  after  his  election  as  bishop;  all  his 
letters  to  me  were  written  with  his  own  hand. 
His  beautiful  library  was  on  the  ground  floor  of 
his  bachelor  home  on  Marlboro  Street  in  Boston, 
and  visitors  were  apparently  always  welcome. 
When  and  where  and  how  he  read  and  studied  I 
do  not  know,  but  that  he  was  both  a  careful  stu 
dent  and  a  wide  reader  is  abundantly  indicated 
by  his  sermons.  I  asked  him  once  when  he  did 
his  reading.  His  reply  was  characteristic  of  a 
man  who  never  talked  about  himself.  "  I  have," 
he  replied,  "a  cottage  at  Andover  where  I  go  in 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

the  summer.  And  every  year  I  take  up  a  book 
and  read  it  there;  and — well — the  next  year  I 
take  up  another  book." 

His  body  was  a  fit  tabernacle  for  a  large  mind. 
He  had  a  wide  horizon,  intellectually  lived  in  the 
open  country,  was  interested  in  large  themes. 
But  no  themes  seemed  to  him  large  unless  they 
concerned  human  life.  His  thinking  was  always 
suffused  with  feeling;  but  his  feelings  were  always 
under  his  control.  He  was  never  an  indifferentist 
and  never  an  enthusiast. 

He  was  a  loyal,  consistent,  and  conscientious 
Churchman.  But  ecclesiastical  questions  did 
not  interest  him.  In  the  meetings  of  the  House 
of  Bishops  the  newly  elected  bishops  sit  in  the 
rear  of  the  church,  the  older  ones  in  front.  In 
the  first  meeting  after  Phillips  Brooks's  election, 
toward  the  close  of  the  session  Bishop  Henry  C. 
Potter  was  passing  out.  Bishop  Brooks  stopped 
him  with  this  whispered  question:  "Henry,  is  it 
always  as  dull  as  this?" 

Mr.  Beecher  once  said  in  my  hearing:  "Schol 
ars  talk  about  essential  truths.  Essential 
to  what?  Essential  to  a  perfect  system,  or 
essential  to  a  perfect  life?"  The  only  truths 
that  Phillips  Brooks  regarded  as  essential  were 
the  truths  that  contributed  something  to  life. 
I  do  not  know  what  Phillips  Brooks  thought 
about  evolution  as  a  biological  theory  or  whether 

243 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

he  thought  about  it  at  all,  nor  what  sociological 
theory  of  industrial  and  political  development 
he  held,  or  whether  he  had  ever  formulated  for 
himself  any  theory.  But  this  I  do  know :  That 
in  the  seed  he  saw  the  flower,  and  in  the  babe  the 
man,  and  in  the  tribe  the  nation;  that  he  believed 
that  life  is  an  end  in  itself  not  a  means  to  some 
other  end,  as  happiness  either  here  or  hereafter; 
that  this  life  of  God,  this  divine  life,  this  Christ- 
life  is  possible  to  men  here  and  now;  that  it  is  not 
something  external  to  man,  but  an  experience  in 
man.  Phillips  Brooks  believed  in  this  life  be 
cause  he  possessed  it;  and  it  so  abounded  in  him 
as  to  overflow,  as  water  out  of  a  great  fountain, 
so  irradiated  him  as  to  shine  out,  giving  light 
and  life  always  and  everywhere. 

It  was  this  life  of  God  in  his  own  soul  and  this 
faith  that  it  broods  over  all  men  and  is  manifest 
in  all  the  natural  and  healthful  activities  of  man 
that  made  him  the  inspiring  preacher  that  he 
was.  I  sat  next  to  him  once  at  a  public  dinner 
where  we  were  both  to  speak  on  a  semi-political 
topic.  He  said  to  me:  "I  don't  know  what 
to  say  on  this  theme  to-night.  Religion  is 
always  easy  to  talk  on;  it  is  so  natural.  Don't 
you  think  so?"  He  was  fond  of  and  familiar 
with  architecture.  "They  say,"  he  said,  "that 
the  grotesque  gargoyles  were  put  on  the  outside 
of  the  cathedrals  to  represent  the  evil  spirits 

244 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

being  driven  out  from  the  house  of  God.     I  think 
it  far  more  likely  they  were  expressions  of  that 
humour  that  is  innate  in  all  men  and  finds  ex 
pression  in  our  time  in  newspaper  caricatures." 
And  he  told  me  that  when  his  own  church  was 
being    decorated    it    was    discovered    that   the 
painter  had  put  a  grotesque  figure  on  the  ceiling, 
and  I  believe  it  became  necessary  to  put  the 
scaffold  up  again  in  order  to  take  this  figure  out. 
Thus  his  faith  in  the  universal  presence  of  God 
in  all  innocent  and  healthful  human  activities  is 
illustrated   by    his    understanding   of   children. 
No  grown-up,  I  think,  ever  understood  them 
better.     He  had  in  some  respects  a  child's  mind, 
which  is  very  different  from  a  childish  mind. 
Jesus  said  that  one  must  become  as  a  little  child 
if  he  would  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Phillips  Brooks  remained  as  a  little  child  after 
he  had  entered  that  kingdom.     Staying  with  a 
friend,  he  went  up  to  his  room  to  get  ready  for 
supper  and  did  not  return.     After  some  delay 
the  lady  of  the  house  went  up  to  call  him,  and 
found  him  in  the  nursery  sitting  on  the  floor  with 
the  children  as  his  hosts,  having  afternoon  tea 
out  of  their  toy  cups  and  saucers.     This  was  no 
act  of  condescension  on  his  part.     He  enjoyed 
it  as  much  as  they.     In  his  charming  letters  of 
travel  none  are  more  charming  than  those  to  his 
nephews  and  nieces. 

245 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

One  incident  in  my  own  association  with 
Phillips  Brooks  which  brought  us  into  very  close 
fellowship  illustrates  his  catholicity,  his  com 
parative  unconcern  about  ecclesiastical  and 
theological  theories,  his  interest  in  the  various 
phases  of  the  spiritual  life,  and  his  understanding 
of  children. 

On  January  16,  1890,  a  Congregational  Coun 
cil  was  to  be  held  in  Plymouth  Church  to  ordain 
to  the  Christian  ministry  my  associate,  Howard 
S.  Bliss,  and  to  instal  him  and  myself  as  co- 
pastors  of  that  church.  After  the  death  of 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  there  was  no  man  in  the 
Christian  ministry  whom  I  revered  and  loved 
as  I  did  Phillips  Brooks.  With  some  hesitation, 
I  wrote  to  him,  telling  him  of  the  expected  ser 
vice  and  that  there  was  no  man  whose  presence 
and  participation  I  so  much  desired  as  his,  yet  I 
did  not  want  to  ask  him  to  violate  a  canon  or 
rubric  of  his  Church,  and  with  them  I  was  not 
familiar.  Could  he  and  would  he  come?  I  re 
ceived  in  reply  the  following  letter: 

Wadsworth 
December  2,   1889. 
DEAR  DR.  ABBOTT: 

I  know  you  will  not  think  it  indifference  or  carelessness 
which  has  left  your  kind  &  welcome  &  surprising  note  so 
long  unanswered.  It  has  been  only  the  waiting  for  that 
leisure  half  hour  which  never  comes  &  which  we  always 
keep  the  delightful  delusion  of  expecting.  But  I  must  not 

246 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

wait  for  it  any  longer  &  so,  between  the  students'  visits,  I 
will  tell  you  first  how  truly  I  thank  you  for  the  friendly  im 
pulse  which  made  you  wish  that  I  should  come  and  take 
any  part  in  the  most  interesting  service  of  your  installation. 
I  value  that  impulse  of  yours  very  deeply  and  I  always 
shall.  I  may  most  frankly  say  that  there  is  no  man  from 
whom  I  should  more  joyfully  receive  such  a  token  of  con 
fidence  &  affection. 

I  should  like  exceedingly  to  come,  I  would  make  every 
effort  to  do  so.  There  is  nothing  I  am  sure  in  any  Canon 
or  Rubric  which  would  prevent  my  coming.  I  am  not 
very  wise  in  Rubrics  or  Canons,  but  I  do  not  remember  one 
which  says  a  word  about  our  ministers  sitting  in  Congre 
gational  Councils.  The  only  questions  in  my  mind  are 
two.  First,  about  the  date.  Your  letter  is  not  by  me  here 
but  I  think  you  do  not  give  the  exact  date,  and  there  are 
so  many  foolish  promises  which  I  have  made  to  do  foolish 
things  in  the  early  part  of  January  that  I  do  not  dare  to  feel 
absolutely  sure  of  escaping  during  that  time. 

The  other  question  is  as  to  the  function  of  a  member  of 
an  Ordaining  Council.  I  am  disgracefully  ignorant.  I 
have  been  nothing  but  an  Episcopalian  all  my  life.  What 
does  an  Installer  do,  I  wonder.  And  what  would  the  Con- 
gregationalists  say  when  they  saw  me  there? 

Would  it  not  be  better  that  I  should  come,  if  possible, 
and  utter  the  interest  which  I  really  deeply  feel  by  giving 
out  a  hymn  or  reading  a  Lesson  from  Scripture  at  the 
Installation  service?  And  then  if  at  the  last  moment 
something  here  made  it  impossible  for  me  to  come,  per 
haps  another  man  might  do  my  important  duty  in  my  place 
and  I  should  be  with  you  in  spirit  and  bid  you  godspeed 
all  the  same. 

These  are  my  questions.  In  view  of  them,  do  with  me 
what  you  think  best.  I  hope  I  have  written  intelligently, 

247 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

but  since  I  began  to  write  several  of  these  boys  have  been 
in  with  their  big  questions  which  they  ask  with  as  much 
apparent  expectation  of  an  immediate  &  satisfactory 
answer  as  if  they  were  inquiring  the  way  to  Boston.  How 
delightful  they  are !  We  are  all  rejoicing  in  the  good  work 
which  you  did  here  and  left  behind  you.  It  was  a  dis 
tinct  refreshment  &  enlargement  of  all  that  had  been  done 
before.  We  will  do  our  best  to  keep  the  fire  from  going 
out  until  you  come  again. 

Meanwhile,  I  hope  I  have  not  written  too  vaguely  about 
the  Council  &  I  am, 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

PHILLIPS  BROOKS. 

He  came  and  made  one  of  the  four  addresses 
of  that  occasion.  It  was  a  characteristic  in 
terpretation  of  the  life  of  the  spirit;  but  nothing 
in  it  so  much  endeared  him  to  us  all  as  an  in 
cident  in  our  home,  which  I  have  asked  my 
daughter  to  write  for  insertion  here: 

At  the  time  of  my  father's  installation,  there 
was  held  at  our  house  a  luncheon  for  those  who 
were  of  the  Ordaining  Council.  I  was  about 
twelve  years  old  at  the  time,  and  I  suppose  that 
my  mother  thought  that  it  would  be  a  valuable 
memory  for  me  to  have,  so  she  insisted  that  I 
should  come  and  sit  in  a  chair  at  my  father's  side 
during  the  dessert.  Naturally,  I  was  not  very 
enthusiastic  about  the  prospect,  for  I  much  pre 
ferred  playing  out  of  doors  to  listening  to  a  num 
ber  of  ministers  talk  theology.  Shortly  after  I 

248 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

had  come  into  the  room  and  taken  the  appointed 
place  I  noticed  a  big  man  who  sat,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  about  half  way  up  the  table.  He  was 
telling  Father  all  about  the  games  the  little  Japa 
nese  girls  played,  and  also  giving  Father  a  de 
scription  of  the  Japanese  toys.  I  thought  to 
myself  that  at  least  one  minister  knew  what  was 
interesting,  for  all  the  others  stopped  talking 
and  listened,  too.  After  the  luncheon  I  tried  to 
slip  out  of  the  way,  so  as  to  attract  as  little  at 
tention  as  possible,  when  I  saw  the  same  big  man 
come  round  the  end  of  the  table  toward  me  and 
I  soon  found  my  hand  lost  in  his. 

"Would  you  like  to  go  to  Japan?"  said  he. 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  gasped. 

"We'll  go  then,"  said  he. 

He  then  took  me  into  the  front  room  and  told 
me  more  about  that  part  of  his  travels  in  Japan 
which  would  interest  a  child.  The  one  thing 
that  remains  in  my  mind  is  that  he  said  that 
in  greeting  each  other  the  Japanese  bowed  way 
down  to  the  ground  (I  think  it  was  the  Japanese), 
and  that  it  was  not  so  hard  for  them  to  do  it, 
as  they  were  not  so  very  tall.  "It  was  harder 
for  me,"  said  he,  "and  very  hard  for  my  friend 
Doctor  McVicker,  who  is  just  exactly  twice  as  tall 
as  I  am." 

From  that  time  Phillips  Brooks  was  in  my 
mind  a  "truly  friend  of  mine,"  although  I  did 

249 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

not  see  him  again  until  I  was  about  sixteen. 
I  was  staying  in  Cambridge  with  my  father, 
when  one  day  he  asked  me  if  I  would  like  to  go 
into  Boston  with  him  and  leave  my  card  on 
Phillips  Brooks  in  addition  to  doing  some  sight 
seeing.  We  had  very  little  idea  that  we  would 
find  Bishop  Brooks  at  home,  but,  to  our  delight, 
he  came  to  greet  us  immediately  on  our  sending 
in  our  cards.  He  took  us  to  his  study,  and  what 
impressed  me  more  than  anything  else  was  the 
contrast  between  him  and  some  other  ministers 
on  whom  Father  had  taken  me  to  call.  They  all 
were  cordial  and  friendly,  but  very  soon  after 
the  greeting  they  would  talk  with  Father  about 
theology  and  I  would  wait  with  as  much  patience 
as  I  could  summon  until  the  call  was  over.  Not 
so  Bishop  Brooks.  He,  from  the  beginning, 
talked  about  things  in  which  both  Father  and  I 
could  be  interested.  That  day,  I  remember,  he 
told  us  how  the  carvings  in  many  of  the  cathed 
rals  in  Europe  were  the  only  means  by  which 
the  artists  of  olden  time  could  express  their 
sense  of  humour  and  he  cited  instances  of  the 
humour  in  those  carvings.  After  a  short  call 
Father  said  we  must  not  keep  him  any  longer. 
This  is  my  recollection  of  that  conversation: 

Bishop  Brooks.  People  think  that  because 
I  am  a  bishop  I  am  busy.  I'm  not  busy. 

My  father.  I  feel  sure  that  we  have  taken  as 
250 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

much  of  your  time  as  we  should,  and  besides  I 
want  my  daughter  to  see  your  church. 

Bishop  Brooks  (to  me).  Now,  wouldn't  you 
rather  see  me  than  see  my  church?  (To  my 
father.)  You  surely  have  nothing  to  do  here. 
It  is  just  because  you  are  so  busy  at  home  that 
you  think  you  must  be  busy  here,  too. 

However,  my  father  insisted  that  we  must  go. 
Then  Bishop  Brooks  turned  to  me  and  said: 
"The  next  time  you  come  to  Boston,  bring 
your  knitting  work  and  spend  the  after 
noon." 

In  both  cases — the  first  time  when  I  was  twelve 
and  the  next  time  when  I  was  sixteen — I  was  im 
pressed  by  the  fact  that  he  took  the  trouble  and 
was  able  to  understand  the  interests  of  others, 
and  so  could  establish  at  once  friendly  relations. 
He  died  not  long  after  our  last  call  upon  him, 
and,  like  thousands,  I  felt  I  had  lost  a  personal 
friend.  I  had  seen  him  but  twice. 

How  far  he  was  a  pastor  in  his  parish  I  have 
no  means  of  knowing.  To  have  called  systema 
tically  on  stated  days  so  as  to  visit  every  family 
once  a  year  would  have  been  foreign  to  his  na 
ture.  But  his  acquaintance  with  God  and  his 
sympathetic  understanding  of  men  made  him 
a  wise  counsellor  in  spiritual  perplexity  and  a 
strength-giving  comforter  in  time  of  sorrow. 
The  number  of  students  who  called  upon  him 

251 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

in  his  university  ministry  evidenced  the  first; 
the  following  incident  narrated  to  me,  though 
not  by  him,  illustrates  the  second: 

A  young  man  who  was  living  with  his  wife 
and  their  infant  child  in  a  boarding-house  in 
Boston  trying  to  save  money  with  which  to  buy 
an  interest  in  the  business  in  which  he  served, 
attended  Trinity  Church  irregularly  on  Sundays, 
sitting  in  the  gallery.  His  child  died  suddenly. 
The  young  wife  was  heartbroken  and  half 
crazed  by  the  suddenness  of  the  blow.  She 
would  not  relinquish  the  babe,  but  held  it  in  her 
arms  and  rocked  it  as  though  it  were  asleep. 
Nothing  he  could  say  had  any  effect.  The 
motherly  landlady  suggested  that  he  call  on 
Phillips  Brooks.  He  was  reluctant;  had  never 
met  him,  was  not  a  member  of  his  church,  nor 
even  of  his  regular  and  recognized  congregation. 
But  despair  for  his  wife  reinforced  the  counsel 
of  his  landlady.  He  went  to  the  rector's  house; 
found  access  easy  to  the  rector's  study,  as  did 
all  callers;  and  before  he  had  finished  his  story 
was  interrupted.  "I  will  go  with  you,"  said 
the  rector.  They  went  together  to  the  house 
of  sorrow,  and  found  the  wife  and  mother  still 
rocking  the  babe  in  her  arms  as  though  in 
sleep.  Phillips  Brooks  leaned  over  and  looked 
on  the  sleeping  babe.  "What  a  beautiful 
child!"  he  said.  "Would  you  let  me  rock  him 

252 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

for  a  little  while?"  The  mother  laid  the  babe 
in  the  rector's  arms  and  he  took  the  mother's 
chair.  Then,  responding  to  a  gesture  of  Phillips 
Brooks,  the  husband  led  the  mother  from  the 
room.  When  he  returned,  Doctor  Brooks  asked 
when  the  funeral  was  to  be,  himself  proposed  to 
attend  it,  and  an  hour  after  he  had  gone  there 
came  a  bunch  of  lilies  with  his  card  for  the 
morrow.  The  man  who  wrote:  "The  priest 
should  be,  above  all  things,  a  man  with  an  in 
tense  and  live  humanity,"  illustrated  his  defi 
nition  by  his  deeds.  Never,  I  think,  was  priest 
more  honoured  and  loved  than  he. 

I  at  first  had  intended  to  entitle  this  chapter 
"Phillips  Brooks,  A  Catholic  Priest."  But  a 
wise  friend  advised  me  to  change  the  title. 
"To  the  average  reader,"  she  said,  "it  will  sug 
gest  ideas  that  you  do  not  wish  to  suggest 
and  it  will  arouse  prejudices  that  subsequent 
explanations  in  the  chapter  will  not  easily  al 
lay."  I  think  she  was  right  and  I  changed  the 
title.  But  if  it  is  true  that  a  catholic  is  one  whose 
mind  appreciates  all  truth,  and  whose  spirit 
appreciates  all  that  is  good,  and  if  a  priest 
is  one  who  by  his  conduct  of  public  wor 
ship  interprets  the  unspoken  experiences  of  a 
silent  congregation  to  themselves  by  speaking 
for  them  to  a  listening  Father,  then  Phillips 
Brooks  was  preeminently  a  catholic  priest.  Al- 

253 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

most  the  last  act  of  his  life  illustrated,  because  it 
unconsciously  expressed,  his  catholic  spirit.  A 
correspondent  in  a  letter  to  me  has  narrated 
this  act  with  such  beautiful  simplicity  that  I 
transfer  it  here  to  my  pages: 

Readville,  Mass. 

June  13,  1921. 
REV.  LYMAN  ABBOTT,  D.D. 
DEAR  SIR: 

I  read  with  the  deepest  interest  your  tribute  to  Phillips 
Brooks  in  a  recent  number  of  the  Outlook.  The  last 
sermon  he  preached  was  in  our  little  Union  chapel — not 
200  feet  from  my  home  where  I  am  now  writing.  It  was 
my  pleasant  duty  to  secure  the  various  preachers  who 
ministered  to  us  (we  had  no  pastor).  I  learned  that  he 
was  to  preach  in  Hyde  Park  Sunday  morning  Jan.  15 
[1893]  and  was  to  give  a  "talk"  in  the  evening  in  East 
Dedham.  He  had  never  heard  of  our  chapel,  and  certainly 
had  never  heard  of  me,  but  I  wrote  him  a  brief  note  telling 
what  a  joy  it  would  be  to  us,  if  in  the  afternoon,  he  would 
preach  to  our  little  congregation  of  Methodists,  Baptists, 
Congregationalists,  Presbyterians,  and  a  few  Episcopalians. 
I  didn't  expect  he  would  come,  I  simply  cherished  a  forlorn 
hope  that  he  might. 

To  my  great  surprise  and  intense  delight  I  received  in  a  few 
days  a  card  from  him,  accepting  the  invitation  and  closing 
with  the  beautiful  words  I  can  never  forget:  "I  thank 
you  for  inviting  me."  He  came,  and  preached  a  sermon 
which  those  who  heard  must  still  remember.  Had  he 
stood  in  some  grand  cathedral  before  a  throng  of  the  rich 
and  great,  he  could  not  have  been  more  earnest,  or  more 
eloquent.  In  a  week  our  hearts  were  broken  when  the 

254 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

morning  papers  told  us  the  great  man,  preacher,  and  bishop 
was  dead.  Two  splendid  portraits  of  him  in  his  prime 
hang  on  the  walls  of  our  chapel,  and  his  memory  still  makes 
the  place  sacred. 

After  Doctor  Brooks' s  death  a  unique  meet 
ing  was  held  in  New  York  City  which  was  an 
unconscious  tribute  to  the  catholicity  of  one 
who  had  endeared  himself  to  men  of  all  faiths 
and  to  many  who  appeared  to  have  none 
at  all,  by  his  appreciation  of  all  truth  and 
of  all  that  is  good.  A  young  man  called  at 
the  office  of  the  Outlook  to  suggest  to  me  that 
a  public  meeting  should  be  held  in  New  York 
in  memory  of  Phillips  Brooks.  I  have  since 
learned  that  he  was  a  teacher  in  one  of  the  public 
schools  of  the  city,  that  he  was  not  a  churchman 
and  was  by  no  means  a  regular  attendant  at 
any  church,  but  was  a  grateful  admirer  of 
Phillips  Brooks  because  of  the  inspiration  which 
the  spirit  of  Phillips  Brooks  had  imparted  to 
his  spirit.  He  represented  no  church,  no  or 
ganization,  no  committee,  and  had  never  spoken 
with  Phillips  Brooks,  but  urged  that  there  ought 
to  be  a  spontaneous  and  unsectarian  expression 
of  the  universal  reverence  and  the  universal 
sorrow.  I  sympathized  with  his  desire  but  dis 
couraged  his  attempt.  To  organize  a  great 
meeting  in  a  great  conglomerate  city  like  New 
York  is  never  easy.  To  do  it  without  support 

255 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

previously  pledged  seemed  to  me  impossible. 
Would  I  attend?  Yes.  And  speak?  Yes. 

A  week  later  I  received  notice  that  a  meet 
ing  would  be  held  and  that  Carnegie  Hall, 
the  largest  hall  in  the  city,  had  been  secured. 
There  was  still  no  organization,  no  committee. 
There  was  no  extraordinary  advertising.  But 
when,  on  the  appointed  evening,  I  reached  the 
place,  the  hall  was  crowded  to  its  utmost  ca 
pacity,  and  the  speakers  included  a  Jewish 
rabbi,  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  New  York's 
most  eloquent  lawyer,  and  four  Protestant 
clergymen.  The  young  man  was  not  to  be  seen; 
and  I  have  never  seen  him  since.  The  speeches 
were  as  simple,  as  spontaneous,  and  as  catholic 
as  the  audience.  Rabbi  Gustav  Gottlieb  said 
of  the  man  we  came  to  honour:  "He  was  not 
bishop  of  his  Church  only,  he  was  my  bishop  also 
by  divine  calling  and  consecration . ' '  The  Roman 
Catholic  priest  said  of  him  that  he  "was  about 
his  Master's  work.  He  seemed  emancipated 
from  all  human  vanity."  And  I  venture  to 
bring  this  tribute  of  affectionate  reverence  to  a 
close  by  quoting  a  sentence  from  my  own  closing 
address  on  that  memorable  occasion: 

"We  have  been  wondering,  Is  there  any  God? 
And  we  have  been  reaching  out  in  nature  to  find 
the  evidence  of  him.  And  suddenly  there  ap 
pears  before  us  the  divine  shining  in  one 

256 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

great  illuminated  nature,  one  that  is  full  of 
God;  and  while  we  stood  in  his  presence,  while 
we  heard  his  voice,  while  we  were  looking  in  his 
eyes  and  he  was  looking  into  ours,  then  did  God 
come  again;  then  did  we  realize  that  God  is;  then 
did  we  feel  that  God  speaks  to  the  heart  of  man 
through  the  heart  of  man." 


257 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON,  STATESMAN 

MR.  ROOSEVELT  once  sent  me  a  news 
paper  clipping  which  Mr.  Washington 
had  sent  to  him  with  a  note  affirming  its 
truth.  I  returned  the  clipping  to  Mr.  Roose 
velt  and  quote  it  here  from  memory. 

A  Southern  gentleman,  meeting  Mr.  Wash 
ington  in  Florida,  said  to  him,  "Professor  Wash 
ington,  you  are  the  greatest  man  in  the  country." 

Mr.  Washington.  Oh,  no,  sir!  you  mustn't 
think  that.  There  are  many  men  much  greater 
than  I  am. 

Gentleman.     Name  one. 

Mr.  Washington.  Well,  sir,  President  Roose 
velt  is  a  much  greater  man  than  I  am. 

Gentleman.  No,  sir!  I  used  to  think  he 
was  a  great  man  until  he  invited  you  to  lunch 
eon. 

This  testimony  from  a  Southerner  to  the  great 
ness  of  Mr.  Washington  was  by  no  means  unique. 
It  represented  a  considerable  sentiment  of  respect 
throughout  the  South  for  Mr.  Washington's  char 
acter  as  a  man  and  as  a  publicist. 

A  number  of  years  ago,  during  Mr.  McKin- 
ley's  presidency,  I  was  in  a  Southern  town  in 

258 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

one  of  the  border  states  where  I  had  gone  to 
preach  or  to  lecture.  Half  a  dozen  prominent 
citizens  were  invited  by  my  host  to  meet  me. 
They  were  all  Southerners.  I  was  the  only  one 
in  the  company  who  resided  north  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line.  The  conversation  at  the  sup 
per  table  drifted  toward  politics  and  then  to 
estimates  of  some  of  our  public  men.  The  ques 
tion  was  raised  who  our  greatest  statesman  was. 
Each  gentleman  present  gave  his  estimate. 
With  one  exception  they  all  declared  Booker 
Washington  to  be  the  greatest  statesman.  The 
one  exception  put  Mr.  McKinley  first  and 
Booker  Washington  second. 

If  comparisons  are  odious,  superlatives  are 
impossible.  There  is  no  greatest  poem,  or 
greatest  statue,  or  greatest  picture,  or  greatest 
book,  or  greatest  text  in  the  Bible;  though  these 
are  constantly  being  asked  for  by  writers  to  the 
newspapers.  Every  useful  product  of  human 
effort  has  its  own  peculiar  value.  Which  is  the 
more  important  in  a  watch? — the  hair  spring  or 
the  main  spring?  Both  are  essential.  I  would 
not,  therefore,  agree  that  Booker  Washington  is 
the  greatest  statesman;  but  he  was,  certainly, 
one  of  the  great  statesmen  of  his  century. 

What  do  I  mean  by  statesman? 

I  shall  not  assume  the  office  of  a  lexicographer 
or  go  to  the  dictionaries  to  get  the  meaning  of 

259 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  word,  but  give  the  meaning  which  I  attach 
to  it  in  estimating  the  public  men  of  history. 
Hegel  says,  "God  governs  the  world;  the  actual 
working  of  his  government — the  carrying  out 
of  his  plan — is  the  History  of  the  World."  He 
is  a  statesman  who  understands  that  plan, 
reads  aright  the  enigma  of  his  age,  and  success 
fully  cooperates  in  achieving  the  divine  purpose. 
Cavour  was  a  statesman;  Bismarck  was  not. 
Both  worked  to  accomplish  a  national  unity;  one 
in  Germany,  the  other  in  Italy.  But  Bismarck 
thought  that  national  unity  could  be  accom 
plished  by  uniting  different  governments  under 
one  imperial  head  through  the  power  of  a  great 
army.  Cavour  saw  that  national  unity  could 
be  accomplished  only  by  uniting  a  dissevered 
people  in  one  community  by  inspiring  them  with 
a  common  spirit  and  a  common  purpose.  Italy, 
united  from  within,  was  never  more  a  unit  than 
it  is  to-day.  War,  the  fickle  patron  saint  of 
Germany  which  gave  to  her  Alsace  and  Lorraine 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  has  given  them  back 
to  France  in  the  twentieth  century,  and  what  is 
to  be  the  fate  of  shattered  Germany  no  one  can 
foretell. 

Booker  T.  Washington  was  a  great  statesman 
because  he  understood  the  meaning  of  his  age 
and  gave  himself  a  willing  and  intelligent  instru 
ment  to  the  beneficent  solution  of  his  nation's 

260 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

problem.  The  Civil  War  had  established  the 
authority  of  the  National  Government,  but  it 
still  remained  to  unite  North  and  South  by  a 
common  spirit  and  a  common  purpose;  it  had 
set  free  the  slave,  but  it  still  remained  to  estab 
lish  new  relations  of  mutual  friendliness  and  re 
spect  between  the  races;  it  had  abolished  the 
old  system  of  compulsory  labour,  but  it  still  re 
mained  to  create  a  new  system  of  free  labour;  it 
had  stricken  the  shackles  from  the  limbs  of  the 
slave,  but  it  still  remained  to  strike  the  shackles 
from  his  mind  and  to  teach  him  and  his  neigh 
bour  the  rights,  the  duties,  and  the  responsibilities 
of  freedom.  To  this  task  Booker  Washington 
devoted  his  life  with  singleness  of  purpose,  clear 
ness  of  vision,  and  patience  of  endeavour. 

He  has  told  the  story  of  his  life  very  simply 
and  very  modestly  in  his  autobiography:  "Up 
from  Slavery";  a  book  which  is  a  valuable  addi 
tion  both  to  American  history  and  to  American 
literature.  It  is  preeminently  a  book  for  Amer 
ican  boys  and  girls  and  ought  to  be  in  every 
school  library  in  the  country.  Out  of  this 
book  the  thoughtful  reader  can  easily  get  some 
impression  of  the  spirit  that  animated  Mr. 
Washington  and  the  principles  that  governed 
him  during  his  extraordinary  career.  How 
far  these  principles  were  carefully  thought  out 
and  accurately  defined  by  himself  to  himself; 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

how  far  they  were  unconsciously  imbibed  from 
the  great  leaders  whose  examples  he  emulated — 
General  Armstrong  and  Doctor  Frissell;  and 
how  far  they  were  born  in  him  and  cultivated  by 
his  own  reflection  upon  the  experiences  and  ob 
servations  of  his  own  life  I  do  not  know,  and 
I  do  not  think  he  knew.  Nor  is  it  important 
for  us  to  inquire. 

Booker  T.  Washington  was  born  in  1858  or 
1859 — he  does  not  know  the  day  or  the  month. 
His  mother  was  a  slave  and  a  woman  of  unusual 
character.  He  does  not  know  who  his  father 
was.  After  emancipation  and  he  began  to  go 
to  school  he  found  the  other  boys  had  two 
names  while  he  had  but  one.  To  meet  the 
dilemma  he  adopted  his  surname.  "When  the 
teacher  asked  me  what  my  full  name  was,  I 
calmly  told  him  'Booker  Washington,'  as  if  I 
had  been  called  by  that  name  all  my  life.  .  .  . 
I  think  there  are  not  many  men  in  our  country 
who  have  had  the  privilege  of  naming  them 
selves  in  the  way  that  I  have."  From  the  very 
first  he  shared  the  ambition  common  to  his  race : 
he  was  eager  to  get  an  education.  His  mother 
aided  him;  his  stepfather  did  not.  The  boy  was 
earning  money  by  his  work  in  a  mine  and  it 
was  with  difficulty  that  he  got  permission  to 
attend  school  at  all,  and  much  of  the  time  could 
attend  only  a  night  school.  "Often,"  he  writes, 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

"I  would  have  to  walk  several  miles  at  night  in 
order  to  recite  my  night-school  lessons.  There 
was  never  a  time  in  my  youth,  no  matter  how 
dark  and  discouraging  the  days  might  be,  when 
one  resolve  did  not  continually  remain  with 
me,  and  that  was  a  determination  to  secure  an 
education  at  any  cost."  He  chanced  to  over 
hear  two  miners  talking  about  a  great  school 
for  coloured  people  somewhere  in  Virginia  and 
resolved  at  once  to  go  to  it,  although  he  had 
no  idea  where  it  was,  nor  how  many  miles  away, 
nor  how  he  was  going  to  reach  it.  The  dis 
tance  was  about  five  hundred  miles.  The  little 
money  that  he  had  been  able  to  accumulate 
partly  by  his  saving,  partly  by  gifts  to  him  from 
Negro  neighbours,  was  entirely  exhausted  by 
the  time  he  had  reached  Richmond.  He  slept 
under  a  wooden  sidewalk  with  his  satchel  for  a 
pillow,  earned  a  little  money  by  working  in 
unloading  a  ship,  and  finally  reached  Hampton 
with  fifty  cents  in  his  pocket  with  which  to 
begin  his  education.  The  story  of  his  unique 
examination,  though  probably  familiar  to  many 
of  my  readers,  is  so  significant  and  so  simply  and 
graphically  told  by  Booker  Washington  that  I 
quote  from  his  narrative  here : 

I  presented  myself  before  the  head  teacher  for  assign 
ment  to  a  class.  Having  been  so  long  without  proper 
food,  a  bath,  and  change  of  clothing,  I  did  not,  of  course, 

263 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

make  a  very  favourable  impression  upon  her,  and  I  could 
see  at  once  that  there  were  doubts  in  her  mind  about  the 
wisdom  of  admitting  me  as  a  student.  I  saw  her  admitting 
other  students  and  felt  deep  down  in  my  heart  that  I  could 
do  as  well  as  they  if  I  could  only  get  the  chance  to  show 
what  was  in  me.  After  some  hours  had  passed  the  head 
teacher  said  to  me :  "The  adjoining  recitation  room  needs 
sweeping.  Take  the  broom  and  sweep  it." 

I  swept  the  recitation  room  three  times.  Then  I  got  a 
dusting-cloth  and  I  dusted  it  four  times.  All  the  wood 
work  around  the  walls,  every  bench,  table,  and  desk,  I 
went  over  four  times  with  my  dusting-cloth.  Besides, 
every  piece  of  furniture  had  been  moved  and  every  closet 
and  corner  in  the  room  had  been  thoroughly  cleaned.  I 
had  the  feeling  that  in  a  large  measure  my  future  de 
pended  upon  the  impression  I  made  upon  the  teacher  in 
the  cleaning  of  that  room.  When  I  was  through,  I  re 
ported  to  the  head  teacher.  She  was  a  "Yankee "  woman 
who  knew  just  where  to  look  for  dirt.  She  went  into  the 
room  and  inspected  the  floor  and  closets;  then  she  took 
her  handkerchief  and  rubbed  it  on  the  woodwork  about 
the  walls,  and  over  the  table  and  benches.  When  she  was 
unable  to  find  one  bit  of  dirt  on  the  floor,  or  a  particle  of 
dust  on  any  of  the  furniture,  she  quietly  remarked,  "I 
guess  you  will  do  to  enter  this  institution." 

He  had  exemplified  one  of  the  lessons  which  he 
was  to  spend  his  life  in  teaching  to  others:  the 
way  to  secure  respect  is  not  to  demand  it,  but 
to  earn  it. 

His  successful  passing  of  this  examination 
won  for  him  the  position  of  janitor  which  he 
gladly  accepted  because  he  could  thus  work  out 

264 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

nearly  all  the  cost  of  his  board.  How  little  fa 
miliarity  he  had  with  the  elements  of  what  we 
are  accustomed  to  call  civilization  is  indicated 
by  the  fact  that  he  had  never  before  slept  in  a 
bed  with  sheets  and  they  were  a  puzzle  to  him. 
"The  first  night  I  slept  under  both  of  them,  and 
the  second  night  I  slept  on  top  of  both  of  them, 
but  by  watching  the  other  boys  I  learned  my  les 
son  in  this,  and  have  been  trying  to  follow  it 
ever  since  and  to  teach  it  to  others."  Another 
lesson  which  he  learned  in  those  Hampton  years, 
not  from  the  textbooks,  but  from  the  life,  was 
the  value  of  unselfish  service.  "One  of  the 
things  that  impressed  itself  upon  me  deeply, 
the  second  year,  was  the  unselfishness  of  the 
teachers.  It  was  hard  for  me  to  understand 
how  many  individuals  could  bring  themselves 
to  the  point  where  they  could  be  so  happy  in 
working  for  others.  Before  the  end  of  the  year 
I  think  I  began  learning  that  those  who  are  hap 
piest  are  those  who  do  the  most  for  others.  This 
lesson  I  have  tried  to  carry  with  me  ever  since." 
He  learned  also  the  use  and  value  of  the  Bible. 
"I  learned  to  love  to  read  the  Bible,  not  only 
for  the  spiritual  help  which  it  gives,  but  on  ac 
count  of  its  literature.  The  lessons  taught  me 
in  this  respect  took  such  a  hold  upon  me  that 
at  the  present  time,  when  I  am  at  home,  no 
matter  how  busy  I  am,  I  always  make  it  a  rule 

265 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

to  read  a  chapter  or  a  portion  of  a  chapter  in 
the  morning  before  beginning  the  work  of  the 
day." 

On  graduating  from  Hampton  he  taught  for 
two  years  and  then  decided  to  spend  some 
months  in  study  at  Washington,  D.  C.  Here 
he  got  a  glimpse  of  the  effect  of  the  so-called 
higher  education  upon  the  men  of  his  race;  the 
result  was  not  appealing  to  him.  A  large  pro 
portion  of  the  students  by  some  means  had  their 
personal  expenses  paid  for  them.  They  were, 
in  most  cases,  better  dressed,  had  more  money, 
and  often  were  more  brilliant  mentally,  but 
they  were  less  self-dependent,  gave  more  atten 
tion  to  outer  appearances,  knew  more  about  Latin 
and  Greek,  but  less  about  life  and  its  conditions 
as  they  would  meet  it  at  their  homes,  and  were 
not  as  much  inclined  as  were  the  Hampton  stu 
dents  to  get  into  the  country  districts  of  the  South 
and  work  for  the  members  of  their  own  race. 

At  the  end  of  his  term  in  Washington  he 
received  from  a  committee  of  white  people  in 
Charleston,  West  Virginia,  an  invitation  to 
canvass  the  state  in  support  of  the  proposal  to 
transfer  the  capitol  from  Wheeling  to  Charles 
ton.  The  reputation  he  acquired  in  that  can 
vass  brought  him  an  urgent  invitation  to  engage 
in  political  life.  At  that  time  it  was  a  popular 
notion  among  the  coloured  people  that  activity 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

in  politics  was  the  sure  method  to  win  both  in 
fluence  and  fame.  There  was  one  Negro  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  and  he  had  made 
there  an  excellent  record.  But  Mr.  Washington, 
young  as  he  was,  did  not  think  that  the  best 
service  to  his  race  could  be  rendered  in  a  political 
career.  "Even  then,"  he  writes,  "I  had  a 
strong  feeling  that  what  our  people  most  needed 
was  to  get  a  foundation  in  education,  industry, 
and  property,  and  for  this  I  felt  that  they  could 
better  afford  to  strive  than  for  political  prefer 
ment.  ...  A  very  large  proportion  of  the 
young  men  who  went  to  school  or  to  college  did 
so  with  the  expressed  determination  to  prepare 
themselves  to  be  great  lawyers  or  congressmen, 
and  many  of  the  women  planned  to  become  music 
teachers;  but  I  had  a  reasonably  fixed  idea, 
even  at  that  early  period  in  my  life,  that  there 
was  need  for  something  to  be  done  to  prepare 
the  way  for  successful  lawyers,  congressmen, 
and  music  teachers." 

Declining  the  seductive  call  to  a  political 
career,  he  went  back  to  Hampton  Institute  to 
take  up  there  the  work  of  a  teacher  and  to  pursue 
some  supplementary  studies.  A  night  school 
was  presently  started  by  General  Armstrong  for 
the  purpose  of  opening  the  way  for  the  education 
of  young  coloured  men  and  women  who  were  too 
poor  to  be  able  to  contribute  anything  toward 

267 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  cost  of  their  board  or  even  to  supply  them 
selves  with  books.  They  were  received  on  the 
condition  that  they  were  to  work  for  ten  hours 
during  the  day  and  attend  school  for  two  hours 
at  night.  Only  those  who  had  an  eager  desire 
for  education  would  attempt  such  a  school;  only 
those  who  had  patience  would  persist  in  it. 
Mr.  Washington,  by  one  of  those  inspirations 
which  are  a  part  of  the  furnishing  of  such  a  man, 
gave  to  his  night  school  the  title  of  "The  Plucky 
Class,"  and  after  a  student  had  been  in  the 
night  school  long  enough  to  prove  what  was  in 
him,  he  received  a  certificate:  "This  is  to  certify 
that  James  Smith  is  a  member  of  The  Plucky 
Class  of  the  Hampton  Institute  and  is  in  good 
and  regular  standing."  This  night  school  which 
started  with  only  twelve  students  numbered 
three  or  four  hundred  when,  in  1900,  Mr.  Wash 
ington  wrote  his  autobiography. 

Mr.  Washington's  administration  of  the  night 
school  was  his  final  preparation  for  his  life  work. 
One  year  of  that  preparation  sufficed.  In  1881 
the  Legislature  of  Alabama  had  appropriated 
two  thousand  dollars  for  starting  a  school  for 
coloured  people  in  Tuskegee,  which  had  been 
previously  an  educational  centre  for  the  whites. 
The  committee  having  this  matter  in  charge 
wrote  to  Hampton  Institute  to  recommend  a 
principal.  General  Armstrong,  the  principal  of 

268 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

Hampton  Institute,  recommended  Mr.  Washing 
ton  and  to  Tuskegee  Mr.  Washington  went. 

He  had  expected  to  find  there  a  building  prop 
erly  equipped  for  school  work.  He  found  noth 
ing  of  the  kind,  but  did  find  "that  which  no 
costly  building  and  apparatus  can  supply — 
hundreds  of  hungry,  earnest  souls  who  wanted 
to  secure  knowledge."  There  was  no  provision 
for  securing  land,  buildings,  and  apparatus,  and 
the  annual  appropriation  made  by  the  Legisla 
ture  of  two  thousand  dollars  could  be  used  only 
for  the  payment  of  the  salaries  of  the  instructors. 
The  best  accommodations  for  the  school  Mr. 
Washington  could  discover  in  the  town  was  the 
Coloured  Methodist  Church  and  a  rather  dilapi 
dated  shanty  standing  near  it,  both  of  them  in 
so  bad  a  condition  that  during  the  first  month 
of  school  whenever  it  rained  one  of  the  students 
would  leave  his  lessons  to  hold  an  umbrella  over 
the  teacher,  and  on  more  than  one  occasion  the 
landlady  held  an  umbrella  over  him  while  he 
ate  his  breakfast. 

There  was  plenty  of  need  for  the  kind  of  edu 
cation  in  which  Mr.  Washington  believed  and 
which  it  was  his  eager  desire  to  furnish  to  the 
members  of  his  race.  In  the  county  in  which 
Tuskegee  is  situated  the  coloured  people  out 
numbered  the  whites  by  about  three  to  one.  In 
the  plantation  districts,  as  a  rule,  the  whole 

269 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

family  slept  in  one  room  and  guests  shared  the 
apartment  with  them.  He  writes  that  on  more 
than  one  occasion,  "I  went  outside  the  house 
to  get  ready  for  bed  or  to  wait  until  the  family 
had  gone  to  bed.  They  usually  contrived  some 
kind  of  a  place  for  me  to  sleep,  either  on  the 
floor  or  in  the  special  part  of  another's  bed." 
Land  about  the  cabin  homes  could  easily  have 
been  used  for  kitchen  gardens,  but  such  gardens 
were  practically  unknown.  The  only  object  of 
the  Negroes  was  to  plant  cotton  which  in  many 
cases  grew  up  to  the  very  door  of  the  cabin. 
Sewing  machines,  showy  clocks,  and  parlour 
organs  were  often  to  be  found  in  these  cabins- 
clocks  that  did  not  keep  time;  sewing  machines 
that  no  one  knew  how  to  use;  organs  on  which 
no  one  could  play.  "On  one  occasion  when  I 
went  into  one  of  these  cabins  for  dinner,  when 
I  sat  down  to  the  table  for  a  meal  with  the  four 
members  of  the  family  I  noticed  that,  while 
there  were  five  of  us  at  the  table,  there  was  but 
one  fork  for  the  five  of  us  to  use."  In  general  the 
crops  were  mortgaged  and  the  coloured  farmers 
were  in  debt. 

Such  schools  as  existed  were  taught  in  churches 
or  in  log  cabins,  by  teachers  inadequately  pre 
pared  for  their  work,  and  inadequately  provided 
with  books  and  apparatus.  "I  recall,"  says 
Mr.  Washington,  "that  one  day  I  went  into 

270 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

a  schoolhouse — or  rather  into  an  abandoned  log 
cabin  that  was  being  used  as  a  schoolhouse — 
and  found  five  pupils  who  were  studying  a  lesson 
from  one  book.  Two  of  these,  on  the  front  seat, 
were  using  the  book  between  them;  behind  these 
were  two  others  peeping  over  the  shoulders  of  the 
first  two,  and  behind  the  four  was  a  fifth  little 
fellow  who  was  peeping  over  the  shoulders  of 
all  four." 

Of  the  thirty  students  who  reported  for  ad 
mission  when  Tuskegee  Institute  was  opened,  a 
greater  part  were  public  school  teachers  who 
came  in  order  to  be  able  to  earn  a  bigger  salary. 
Some  had  studied  Latin,  and  one  or  two  Greek; 
some  thought  they  had  mastered  arithmetic 
and  knew  about  banking  and  discount,  but  had 
not  mastered  the  multiplication  table.  The 
girls  could  locate  the  Desert  of  Sahara  or  the 
capital  of  China  on  an  artificial  globe,  but  could 
not  locate  the  proper  places  for  the  knives  and 
forks  on  an  actual  dinner  table,  or  the  places  on 
which  the  bread  and  meat  should  be  set.  That 
there  was  a  lack  of  any  acquaintance  with  the 
simplest  rules  of  health,  or  any  provision  for 
complying  with  them,  might  not  unreasonably  be 
expected.  There  was  generally  no  provision  for 
washing  in  the  one-room  cabins,  though  there 
existed  some  sort  of  provision  for  washing  at  least 
the  face  and  hands  outside.  Toothbrushes  were 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

unknown  even  at  a  much  later  date,  though  in 
time,  and  after  much  repetition,  pupils  seeking 
admission  to  the  school  learned  that  the  posses 
sion  of  a  toothbrush  was  part  of  the  required 
equipment.  "I  remember,"  writes  Mr.  Wash 
ington,  "that  one  morning,  not  long  ago,  I 
went  with  the  lady  principal  on  her  usual  morn 
ing  tour  of  inspection  of  the  girls'  rooms.  We 
found  one  room  that  contained  three  girls  who 
had  recently  arrived  at  the  school.  When  I 
asked  them  if  they  had  toothbrushes,  one  of 
the  girls  replied,  pointing  to  a  brush:  'Yes,  sir. 
That  is  our  brush.  We  bought  it  together  yes 
terday.'  It  did  not  take  them  long  to  learn  a 
different  lesson." 

In  such  circumstances  the  introduction  of 
industrial  education  was  attended  with  great 
difficulties.  The  greatest  difficulty,  however, 
was  not  the  lack  of  equipment.  It  was  the  lack 
of  desire  on  the  part  of  the  students  for  an  in 
dustrial  education.  Slavery,  by  making  labour 
compulsory,  had  dishonoured  it.  The  whites 
had  disdained  to  labour;  the  blacks  when  eman 
cipated  were  eager  to  escape  labour.  Pupils 
objected  to  use  their  hands  in  school  work;  they 
had  come  there,  as  one  of  them  expressed  it,  to 
be  educated,  not  to  work.  Letters  came  from 
parents  protesting  against  their  children  en 
gaging  in  labour  while  they  were  in  school. 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

Students  brought  requests  from  their  parents 
to  the  effect  that  they  wanted  their  children 
taught  nothing  but  books.  Religious  teaching 
was  summoned  to  the  support  of  this  inherited 
prejudice.  An  old  coloured  minister  undertook 
to  convince  Mr.  Washington  from  the  story  of 
Adam  and  the  Garden  of  Eden  that  God  had 
cursed  all  labour  and  therefore  it  was  a  sin  for 
any  man  to  work.  But  great  difficulties  seem 
never  to  have  discouraged  Booker  Washington. 
Looking  back  upon  his  experiences  in  those  first 
years  at  Tuskegee,  and  at  details  I  have  not 
space  here  to  report,  he  writes: 

As  I  look  back  now  over  that  part  of  our  struggle,  I  am 
glad  that  we  had  it.  I  am  glad  that  we  endured  all  those 
discomforts  and  inconveniences.  I  am  glad  that  our  first 
boarding-place  was  in  that  dismal,  ill-lighted,  and  damp 
basement.  Had  we  started  in  a  fine,  attractive,  con 
venient  room,  I  fear  we  would  have  "lost  our  heads"  and 
become  "stuck  up."  It  means  a  great  deal,  I  think,  to 
start  off  on  a  foundation  which  one  has  made  for  one's 
self. 

In  April,  1906,  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary 
of  the  founding  of  Tuskegee  Institute  was  cele 
brated  by  appropriate  exercises  at  Tuskegee.  A 
special  train  from  the  North  and  local  trains 
from  the  South  brought  to  that  celebration 
some  two  hundred  distinguished  visitors.  Among 
them  were  such  educational  leaders  as  President 

273 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

Eliot  of  Harvard  University,  Principal  Frissell 
of  Hampton  Institute,  and  President  J.  W.  Aber- 
crombie  of  the  University  of  Alabama;  such 
business  leaders  as  Andrew  Carnegie  and  Robert 
C.  Ogden;  such  reformers,  philanthropists,  and 
publicists  as  George  McAneny,  J.  G.  Phelps 
Stokes,  and  William  H.  Taft;  the  latter  was 
supposed  to  represent  the  views  of  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  administration  of  which  he  was  an  hon 
oured  member.  They  found  in  place  of  the 
dilapidated  coloured  Meeting  House  and  its 
companion  shanty  an  institute  possessing  2,300 
acres  of  land,  upward  of  ninety  buildings,  more 
than  twelve  hundred  pupils,  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  teachers,  an  aggregate  endow 
ment,  including  real  estate,  of  more  than  two 
million  dollars  in  value  and  involving  a  current 
expenditure  of  about  one  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  dollars  a  year.  From  its  gates  six 
thousand  women  had  gone  out  to  carry  with 
them  a  leaven  of  intelligent  industry  throughout 
the  South  and  some  of  them  into  distant  lands; 
nearly  five  hundred  had  been  trained  in  its 
Bible  Training  School  for  direct  Christian  work; 
upward  of  two  thousand  were  engaged  in  teach 
ing;  and  as  a  result  of  their  efforts  there  had 
sprung  up  sixteen  incorporated  schools  animated 
by  its  spirit  and  extending  its  work.  It  was  stated 
then,  and  we  think  the  statement  is  still  true, 

274 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

that  it  was  not  known  that  a  single  graduate  of 
the  Institute  had  ever  been  convicted  of  a  crime. 

Here  we  might  bring  this  article  to  a  close,  for 
the  building  of  Tuskegee  Institute  is  rightly 
regarded  as  Mr.  Booker  Washington's  great 
achievement.  But  to  justify  our  characteriza 
tion  of  him  as  a  great  statesman  one  other  dra 
matic  incident,  and  the  incidents  that  led  up 
to  it,  must  be  briefly  narrated. 

Public  speaking  has  formed  a  larger  part  of 
Mr.  Washington's  work  than  he  intended.  "I 
never  planned,"  he  says,  "to  give  any  large 
part  of  my  life  to  speaking  in  public.  I  have 
always  had  more  of  an  ambition  to  do  things 
than  merely  to  talk  about  doing  them."  But  when 
the  invitations  came  to  him  to  speak  he  carried 
into  this  new  development  of  his  work  the  same 
spirit  of  thoroughness  and  of  trust  in  divine 
guidance  which  had  animated  him  from  boy 
hood.  He  has  given  some  insight  into  the 
secret  of  his  power  as  a  public  speaker  in  a  few 
sentences  which  are  well  worth  the  meditative 
study  of  all  who  desire  to  influence  by  public 
address  their  fellowmen,  whether  from  the 
pulpit  or  the  platform.  "I  make  it  a  rule," 
he  says,  "never  to  go  before  an  audience,  on 
any  occasion,  without  asking  the  blessing  of 
God  upon  what  I  want  to  say.  I  always  make 
it  a  rule  to  make  especial  preparation  for  each 

275 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

separate  address.  I  care  little  how  what  I  am 
saying  is  going  to  sound  in  the  newspapers,  or 
to  another  audience,  or  to  an  individual.  At 
the  time,  the  audience  before  me  absorbs  all 
my  sympathy,  thought,  and  energy." 

In  1893,  when  the  International  Meeting  of 
Christian  Workers  was  held  at  Atlanta,  Georgia, 
an  invitation  came  to  him  at  Boston  to  give  at 
that  meeting  a  five-minute  address.  It  was,  I 
believe,  his  first  invitation  to  speak  to  an  audi 
ence  of  whites  in  the  South.  Was  it  worth 
while  to  travel  so  far  to  do  so  little?  But  was 
it  little?  A  great  deal  can  be  done  by  the 
right  man  on  the  right  occasion  in  five  minutes. 
In  five  minutes  he  can  plant  an  acorn  out  of 
which  will  grow  an  oak.  He  accepted  the  invi 
tation,  went  to  Atlanta,  made  the  five-minute 
speech,  and  returned  to  Boston.  Two  years 
later  he  was  invited  by  telegram  to  accompany 
a  committee  from  Atlanta  to  Washington  for  the 
purpose  of  presenting  to  a  committee  of  Congress 
reasons  for  granting  government  help  for  an  in 
ternational  exposition  which  was  to  be  given  in 
Atlanta  in  September.  His  speech  before  the 
Congressional  Committee  confirmed  the  favour 
able  impression  produced  by  his  five-minute 
speech  two  years  before.  And  as  the  opening  of 
the  Exposition  drew  near,  he  was  invited  to  de 
liver  one  of  the  opening  addresses,  as  a  repre- 

276 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

sentative  of  the  Negro  race.  With  considerable 
hesitation,  he  accepted  the  invitation .  The  situa 
tion  which  that  acceptance  created  was  correctly 
diagnosed  by  a  white  farmer,  one  of  his  neigh 
bours  in  Tuskegee:  "Washington,"  he  said,  "you 
have  spoken  before  the  Northern  white  people, 
the  Negroes  in  the  South,  and  to  us  country 
white  people  in  the  South;  but  in  Atlanta, 
to-morrow,  you  will  have  before  you  the  Northern 
whites,  the  Southern  whites,  and  the  Negroes 
all  together.  I  am  afraid  that  you  have  got 
yourself  into  a  tight  place." 

The  committee  gave  him  a  perfectly  free  plat 
form.  "When  the  invitation  came  to  me,  there 
was  not  one  word  of  intimation  as  to  what  I 
should  say  or  as  to  what  I  should  omit."  The 
public  interest  upon  this  occasion  was  very  great. 
The  public  excitement  was  indicated  by  the  act 
of  Mr.  William  H.  Baldwin,  one  of  the  trus 
tees  of  Tuskegee  Institute,  and  a  warm  personal 
friend,  who  "was  so  nervous  about  the  kind  of 
reception  that  I  would  have,  and  the  effect  that 
my  speech  would  produce,  that  he  could  not 
persuade  himself  to  go  into  the  building,  but 
walked  back  and  forth  in  the  grounds  outside 
until  the  opening  exercises  were  over."  The 
gist  of  Mr.  Washington's  speech  was  expressed 
in  one  homely  metaphor  that  went  the  rounds  of 
the  country.  Rarely  does  a  single  figure  re- 

277 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

ceive  from  so  large  an  audience  so  intelligent 
and  enthusiastic  a  response.  Holding  up  his 
hand  with  his  fingers  extended  and  separated  he 
cried:  "In  all  things  that  are  purely  social  we 
can  be  as  separate  as  the  fingers,"  then  closing 
the  hand  he  continued,  "yet  one  as  the  hand  in 
all  things  essential  to  mutual  progress."  The 
sentiment  was  received  with  enthusiastic  ap 
plause  in  which  the  members  of  both  races 
heartily  joined,  and  the  entire  speech  was  well 
characterized  subsequently  in  a  single  sentence 
by  Mr.  Clark  Howell,  the  editor  of  the  Atlanta 
Constitution:  "The  whole  speech  is  a  platform 
upon  which  blacks  and  whites  can  stand  with 
full  justice  to  each  other." 

I  have  characterized  Booker  T.  Washington 
as  a  great  statesman.  Perhaps  to  justify  that 
statement  the  story  of  his  life  ought  to  be  more 
fully  told  and  the  condition  of  the  problems  with 
which  he  dealt  and  of  the  state  of  public  opin 
ion  upon  them  more  fully  described.  Here  it 
must,  however,  suffice  to  state,  however  inade 
quately,  the  principles  which  he  inculcated  by 
his  speeches  and  illustrated  by  his  action. 

He  interpreted  the  North  to  the  South  and  the 
South  to  the  North,  for  he  never  modified  his 
opinions  in  order  to  adapt  them  to  the  current 
opinion  of  the  geographical  section  in  which  he 
was  speaking. 

278 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

He  interpreted  the  Negroes  to  the  whites 
and  the  whites  to  the  Negroes;  drew  sharply 
the  distinction  between  social  equality  and  in 
dustrial  equality;  never  demanded  more  for  the 
Negro  than  an  opportunity  for  self -development 
and  useful  service,  and  never  conceded  that 
anything  less  than  this  would  be  justice. 

He  spent  no  time  in  discussing  dead  issues;  but 
he  unhesitatingly  condemned  slavery  when  he 
spoke  of  it  at  all,  pointed  out  the  evils  it  wrought 
upon  the  white  race  as  upon  the  black  race,  and 
urged  his  own  people  to  justify  emancipation 
by  demonstrating  the  superior  value  of  free 
labour. 

He  made  no  demands  upon  the  white  race  to 
respect  the  Negro;  but  he  pointed  out  to  the 
Negroes  how  they  could  earn  that  respect,  and 
this  he  did  not  only  by  his  words,  but  by  his 
life  of  unselfish  and  devoted  labour. 

He  saw  no  hope  for  the  Negro  in  conferring 
upon  him  political  power  until  he  had  the  ca 
pacity  to  use  it  intelligently.  Looking  back 
upon  the  past  he  declared  his  belief  that  it  would 
have  been  better  to  make  the  possession  of  a 
certain  amount  of  education  or  property,  or 
both,  a  test  for  the  exercise  of  the  franchise, 
but  that  test  should  be  made  to  apply  honestly 
to  both  the  white  and  the  black  races.  In  other 
words,  while  seldom  discussing  the  political  ques- 

279 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

tion,  he  made  it  clear  that  he  believed  taking 
part  in  the  government  of  others  is  a  responsi 
bility  to  be  earned,  not  a  natural  right  nor  a 
privilege  to  be  universally  granted. 

When  he  began  his  public  labours  I  do  not 
think  there  was  any  organized  industrial  edu 
cation  in  the  nation  save  in  exceptional  cases, 
such  as  Hampton  Institute.  That  we  now  have 
industrial  education  as  a  part  of  our  public 
school  system  in  every  state  in  the  Union  is 
very  largely  due  to  three  men  far  in  advance  of 
their  times :  General  Armstrong,  Doctor  Frissell, 
and  Booker  Washington. 

In  building  the  Tuskegee  Institute  Mr.  Wash 
ington  built  his  own  monument.  Greater  edu 
cators  there  may  have  been;  but  it  would  not 
be  easy  to  find  in  the  history  of  any  race  the 
story  of  a  life  more  Christ-like  in  its  patient 
devotion  to  an  unselfish  cause  than  was  his. 
This  monument  is  a  witness  to  the  possibilities 
of  the  Afro-American.  For  the  possibilities 
of  a  race  are  to  be  always  measured,  not  by 
their  averages  but  by  their  leaders,  and  Doc 
tor  Washington  is  a  conclusive  answer  to  the 
ignorant  assertion  that  the  Negro  is  incapable  of 
great  things.  Nor  is  Tuskegee  less  a  monument 
to  the  white  people  of  the  South.  It  was  called 
into  existence  by  them;  received  its  first  appro 
priation  from  a  Southern  legislature;  and  so 

280 


BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

hearty  and  unanimous  has  been  the  support 
awarded  to  it  by  the  community  in  which  it  is 
situated  that  Doctor  Washington  was  able  to 
say  that  he  had  never  asked  anything  of  his 
white  neighbours  which  they  did  not  cordially 
grant  to  him  if  it  was  in  their  power  so  to  do. 
Finally,  Tuskegee  affords  conclusive  demonstra 
tion  that  it  is  possible  to  unite  both  races  in  a 
common  effort  to  promote  the  common  welfare. 


281 


RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES,  PEACEMAKER 

THE   spirit  in  which    General   Lee   and 
General  Grant  met  at  Appomattox  Court 
House  when,  after  four  years  of  skilful 
and  courageous  fighting,   the  Southern  leader 
surrendered  to  his  chivalric  antagonist,  augured 
well  for  the  early  establishment  of  friendly  rela 
tions  between  the  South  and  the  North.     These 
leaders  truly  represented  their  respective  sec 
tions. 

But  the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
which  so  quickly  followed  that  surrender, 
wrought  an  almost  instant  revolution;  it  in 
spired  bitterness  in  the  North  and  despair  in 
the  South.  President  Johnson  combined  hatred 
of  the  ex- slaveholder  with  contempt  for  the 
ex-slave.  For  four  years  a  new  political  battle 
raged  between  the  South  and  the  North  after 
the  four  years  of  military  battle  had  ended. 
There  were  statesmen  who  welcomed  Grant's 
"Let  us  have  peace,"  and  saw  clearly  how  it 
could  be  attained.  If  the  ex-slaveholder  and 
the  ex-slave  were  to  live  prosperously  together 
in  the  same  community,  mutual  respect  and 
mutual  friendship  must  be  cultivated  between 


RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES 

them.  Years  of  education  would  be  needed 
to  prepare  the  uneducated  Negro  for  full  citizen 
ship.  The  burden  of  that  education  must  not 
be  thrown  upon  the  South  alone.  Federal  aid 
must  be  given  to  Southern  education.  But 
there  were  radicals  of  a  different  opinion.  They 
held  that  suffrage  is  a  natural  right  and  that 
democracy  means  government  by  the  majority. 
Their  policy  was:  "Give  the  Negro  the  ballot  and 
he  will  take  care  of  himself.  His  late  masters 
will  be  his  enemies.  If  he  cannot  protect  him 
self  against  them,  the  Federal  Government  must 
protect  him." 

The  incompetence  and  corruption  which  this 
policy  inflicted  on  the  South  surpasses  belief. 
James  Ford  Rhodes  in  his  history  of  this  period 
tells  us  that  at  first  Southern  men  attempted  to 
cooperate  with  the  Republican  party  in  re 
building  a  new  civilization  on  the  ruins  of  that 
which  slavery  and  war  had  destroyed.  But  they 
soon  gave  up  the  endeavour  in  despair.  Nine 
tenths  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  South  were 
Negroes;  one  tenth  were  white;  and  the  one 
tenth  were  rarely  wise  and  not  always  honest. 
The  inevitable  effect  of  this  policy  on  the  Re 
publican  party  Henry  Ward  Beecher  foretold 
in  a  graphic  figure.  "The  radicals,"  he  said 
to  me  once,  "are  trying  to  drive  the  wedge  into 
the  log  butt-end  foremost,  and  they'll  only  split 

283 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

their  beetle."  This  they  did.  By  the  second 
term  of  Grant's  administration  the  Republican 
party  existed  in  two  bitterly  hostile  factions. 
Meanwhile,  the  corruption  which  the  radicals  had 
unwittingly  fastened  on  the  South  returned  to 
plague  the  North.  A  successful  war  is  almost 
inevitably  followed  by  corruption.  Germany 
suffered  more  from  her  victory  in  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War  than  France  suffered  from  her 
defeat.  The  most  corrupt  period  in  our  national 
history  was  that  which  followed  the  Civil  War. 
It  was  the  period  of  the  carpet-bag  government 
in  the  Southern  states,  of  the  Tweed  Ring  in 
New  York  State,  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  in  the 
Federal  Government.  The  most  corrupt  elec 
tion  in  our  history  was  that  which  followed  the 
second  term  of  General  Grant.  Charges  of  in 
timidation,  of  fraudulent  registration,  of  flagrant 
bribery,  were  preferred  by  each  party  against  the 
other  and  were  substantiated  by  indubitable 
evidence. 

When  the  election  was  over,  it  was  very  doubt 
ful  who  had  been  elected.  Threats  of  civil  war 
were  freely  made  by  partizans;  fears  of  civil  war 
were  seriously  entertained  by  men  behind  the 
scenes.  It  was  solemnly  affirmed  that  145,000 
well-disciplined  troops  were  ready  to  fight  to 
seat  the  Democratic  candidate.  An  army  of 
men  not  disciplined  and  not  organized,  who  had 

284 


RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES 

been  thrown  out  of  employment  by  one  of  the 
worst  panics  that  ever  struck  the  American 
market,  were  believed  to  be  ready  for  a  cam 
paign  of  plunder.  Three  circumstances  con 
spired  to  ward  off  the  danger:  the  assurance  that 
General  Grant  would  use  all  the  resources  of  the 
Nation  to  preserve  order;  the  dread  of  civil  war 
by  a  generation  just  emerging  from  one;  and  the 
poise  of  both  the  Presidential  candidates  who 
showed  equal  anxiety  to  secure  a  peaceable  de 
cision  of  the  issue. 

In  the  election  Mr.  Hayes  had  taken  no  such 
active  part  as  has  now  become  the  fashion  of 
Presidential  candidates.  In  the  post-election 
controversy  his  influence  is  indicated  by  a  letter 
he  wrote  to  Senator  Sherman  at  New  Orleans: 
"We  are  not  to  allow  our  friends  to  defeat  one 
outrage  and  fraud  by  another.  There  must  be 
nothing  crooked  on  our  part.  Let  Mr.  Tilden 
have  the  place  by  violence,  intimidation,  and 
fraud,  rather  than  undertake  to  prevent  it  by 
means  that  will  not  bear  the  severest  scrutiny." 
Finally,  by  an  almost  unanimous  consent,  a 
tribunal  was  created  to  determine  the  issue;  and 
when  .this  tribunal,  by  a  majority  of  one,  de 
clared  Mr.  Hayes  duly  elected,  the  decision  was 
accepted  by  the  Congress  and  by  the  country — 
sullenly,  but  still  accepted.  To  this  day  history  is 
doubtful  whether  this  decision  was  right  or  wrong. 

285 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

When  Mr.  Hayes  was  inaugurated  President 
in  March,  1877,  the  conditions  that  confronted 
him  were  these: 

He  held  his  office  with  a  clouded  title.  More 
than  half  of  the  white  citizens  of  the  United  States 
believed  that  he  had  not  been  constitutionally 
elected;  less  than  half  the  voters  had  voted  for 
him.  He  was  called  to  administer  the  govern 
ment  over  a  nation  divided  not  more  by  the 
Civil  War  than  by  the  undemocratic  recon 
struction  policy,  the  effect  of  which  had  been 
to  incite  jealousy  and  suspicion  between  the 
sections  and  hostility  between  the  races.  Cor 
ruption  in  local,  state,  and  national  govern 
ments  had  brought  government  into  contempt, 
given  to  the  term  "politician"  an  odious  meaning, 
destroyed  some  reputations  and  besmirched 
others.  During  the  first  two  years  of  his  term 
the  Democrats  had  a  majority  in  the  House; 
during  the  last  two  years  a  majority  in  both 
House  and  Senate.  And  he  had  the  hesitating 
and  reluctant  support  of  a  divided  party  and 
the  bitter  hostility  of  some  of  its  most  influential 
and  prominent  leaders.  During  his  stormy 
administration  he  never  lost  his  temper,  never 
answered  abuse  with  abuse,  never  sacrificed 
principle  to  policy,  never  fought  fire  with  fire, 
retained  the  respect  of  his  friends  in  defeat  and 
compelled  the  respect  of  his  enemies  in  victory. 

286 


RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES 

At  the  very  beginning  of  his  administration 
he  foreshadowed  his  break  with  the  "Old  Guard" 
of  his  day  by  the  personnel  of  his  Cabinet,  se 
lected  upon  the  following  simple  principles, 
stated  in  his  diary: 

1.  A  new  Cabinet. 

2.  No  Presidential  candidate. 

3.  No  appointment  to  "take  care"  of  any 
body. 

Seven  weeks  later  he  emphasized  the  break 
by  abandoning  military  rule  in  the  South.  In 
both  Louisiana  and  South  Carolina  were  two 
state  governments — one  Republican,  the  other 
Democratic.  He  withdrew  the  Federal  troops 
from  both  states,  and  in  both  states  the  Re 
publican  governments  collapsed.  The  wrath 
of  the  militant  Republicans  was  unbounded. 
To  them  this  was  a  surrender  to  "unrepentant 
rebels."  His  reply  to  the  fierce  invectives  in  the 
Senate  was  confided  to  his  diary,  which  was  dumb. 
"My  policy,"  he  wrote,  "is  trust,  peace,  and  to 
put  aside  the  bayonet.  I  do  not  think  that  the 
wise  policy  is  to  decide  contested  elections  in  the 
State  by  the  use  of  the  National  army." 

In  his  inaugural  address  he  declared  that  a 
thorough,  radical,  and  complete  reform  in  our 
civil  service  was  a  paramount  necessity.  He 
emphasized  this  conviction  by  removing  two  of 
Senator  Conkling's  wards  from  the  Custom  House 

287 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

in  New  York.  The  Senate  rejected  his  nomina 
tion  of  their  successors,  and  Conkling's  wards 
held  over.  "I  am  right,"  said  Mr.  Hayes  to  his 
diary,  "and  shall  not  give  up  the  fight."  He  did 
not.  A  year  later  his  nominations  were  renewed 
and  confirmed.  His  withdrawal  of  troops  from 
the  South  had  made  Elaine  his  enemy;  his  re 
moval  of  Conkling's  appointees  made  Conkling 
his  enemy.  Mr.  Conkling  had  no  use  for  what 
he  called  "snivel  service  reform."  The  Presi 
dent  confided  to  his  silent  diary  the  political 
principle  which  compelled  his  course.  "I  stand," 
he  wrote,  "for  the  equal  and  Constitutional  inde 
pendence  of  the  Executive.  The  independence 
of  the  different  departments  of  the  Government 
is  essential  to  the  progress  and  existence  of  good 
government." 

A  plan  to  increase  the  money  of  the  country 
and  lower  the  standard  by  remonetizing  silver 
he  vetoed.  Democrats  and  Republicans,  re 
sponding  to  a  popular  demand,  reinforced 
undoubtedly  by  silver-mine  owners  and  silver- 
producing  states,  were  able  to  overrule  the 
President's  veto.  In  the  tangle  of  that  hour, 
when  financiers  were  themselves  perplexed,  Mr. 
Hayes  gave  to  his  diary  in  a  sentence  the  con 
clusion  to  which  years  after  the  whole  country 
came:  "I  cannot  consent  to  a  measure  which 
stains  our  credit." 

288 


RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES 

The  Democratic  party  attached  a  rider  to  the 
Appropriation  Bill  which  would  have  made  it 
impossible  for  the  President  to  fulfil  the  duty 
laid  upon  him  by  the  Constitution  and  preserve 
order  in  the  States  if  necessity  should  arise. 
The  President  called  an  extra  session,  laid  the 
facts  before  Congress  and  the  country  in  a  mes 
sage  so  short  that  busy  men  could  read  it,  so 
simple  that  men  unskilled  in  politics  could  under 
stand  it,  and  so  free  from  combativeness  that  par- 
tizans  could  not  complain  of  it,  and  then  waited 
for  Congress  to  hear  from  the  country  and  retire 
from  its  impossible  position;  and  this  it  did,  after 
a  long  controversy  with  the  patient  President. 

Men  will  face  a  lion  who  will  flee  from  a  swarm 
of  bees.  So  men  will  face  a  political  cabal  who 
will  hesitate  to  challenge  social  conventions  by 
disregarding  a  long-established  social  custom. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hayes  had  never  served  wine  on 
their  home  table.  They  resolved  to  carry  their 
habit  of  abstinence  into  their  new  home  in  the 
White  House.  Their  action  aroused  a  thunder 
storm  of  criticism — lightning  that  did  not  strike 
and  thunder  that  did  not  terrify.  The  criticism 
took  on  every  variety  from  the  good-natured 
bon  mot  of  Mr.  Evarts:  "At  the  President's  re 
ception  water  flowed  like  champagne"  to  the 
irritating  accusation  of  a  disappointed  office- 
seeker  that  what  made  the  President  a  total  ab- 

289 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

stainer  was  his  parsimony.  The  only  serious 
argument  advanced  against  his  course  was  that 
as  host  of  the  nation  he  should  in  his  hospitality 
represent  the  sentiment  of  the  nation.  It 
proved  a  boomerang.  For  presently  the  White 
House  was  deluged  with  letters,  telegrams, 
resolutions,  thank-offerings  of  flowers,  from 
every  section  of  the  country.  Only  a  very  small 
number  of  Americans  served  wine  on  their 
tables;  the  President  was  conforming  the 
hospitality  of  the  White  House  to  the  habits  of 
the  American  people.  His  action  was  the  more 
significant  because  he  had  not  been  a  strict  total 
abstainer  before  his  election,  and  he  never  was 
a  prohibitionist.  As  his  biographer  has  given 
to  the  world  his  statement  of  his  views  of  this 
subject  as  they  were  communicated  to  his  father 
confessor,  the  diary,  I  violate  no  confidence  by 
giving  to  my  readers  his  definition  of  them  in  the 
following  letter  to  me: 

Private 

Fremont,    O. 
22    Sept.,    1880. 
REV.  LYMAN  ABBOTT 

N.Y. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Your  note  of  the  16th  instant  is  before  me.  With  very 
decided  opinions  as  to  the  value  of  "temperance  legis 
lation"  I  am  yet  persuaded  that  their  publication  would, 
if  any  attention  was  given  to  them,  provoke  profitless 

290 


RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES 

controversy.  Certain  experiments  must,  as  I  see  it,  be 
tried  before  there  will  be  any  general  concurrence  of  senti 
ment  among  the  sincere  friends  of  the  cause.  The  ten 
dency  to  division  and  discord  is  already  so  strong  that  I 
am  averse  to  doing  anything  which  will  add  to  it.  The 
true  agencies  for  good  in  this  work,  as  I  look  at  the  sub 
ject,  are  example,  education,  discussion,  and  the  influences 
of  religion. 

Sincerely, 
R.  B.  HAYES. 

I  met  President  Hayes  personally  twice. 
Once  during  his  Presidency,  in  company  with 
Governor  and  Mrs.  Claflin  and  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Lawson  Valentine,  I  spent  an  evening  at  the 
White  House  as  quietly  as  if  we  had  been  in  a 
rural  home  ten  miles  from  a  railway  station. 
The  President's  "shop"  was  by  common  con 
sent  excluded.  Politics  were  not  discussed. 
One  incident  I  recall:  the  President  took  me 
upstairs  to  show  me  his  children  asleep  in  the 
nursery.  I  had  two  boys  of  about  their  age  at 
home;  and  for  a  few  moments  our  fatherly  pride 
and  our  fatherly  love  united  us  in  a  very  sacred 
fellowship. 

The  other  incident  was  later.  After  his  re 
tirement  from  the  Presidency  he  was  elected 
president  of  the  Prison  Reform  Association. 
At  its  annual  meeting  in  Saratoga — I  forget  the 
year — I  was  preacher  and  took  as  my  text:  "If 
thine  enemy  hunger,  feed  him;  if  he  thirst,  give 

291 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

him  drink,"  and  as  my  theme  the  doctrine  that 
the  only  justice  that  the  state  can  rightly  ad 
minister  is  a  merciful  justice  and  the  only  pun 
ishment  it  can  rightly  inflict  is  a  reformatory 
punishment.  After  the  service  the  President,  with 
a  cordiality  that  was  more  than  official,  requested 
the  sermon  for  publication,  and  it  was  printed 
from  the  stenographer's  notes.  He  gave  ex 
pression — I  think  subsequently  to  the  Saratoga 
meeting,  but  I  am  not  sure — to  the  same  prin 
ciple  in  a  characteristically  well-balanced  state 
ment: 

The  chief  aim  in  the  treatment  of  convicts  is  to  protect 
society  against  its  avowed  enemy,  the  criminal.  The 
advocates  of  improved  prisons  and  prison  discipline  add 
to  this  a  more  specific  statement.  They  would  reform 
all  criminals  whom  they  can  reform  by  wise  systems  wisely 
administered.  Those  who  cannot  be  reclaimed  should 
remain  under  sentence  of  conviction  where  they  can  sup 
port  themselves  by  labour  and  do  no  harm  to  society. 

The  principles  laid  down  by  Mr.  Thomas  Mott 
Osborne  in  "Behind  Prison  Bars,"  and  illus 
trated  by  his  own  prison  administration,  are  all 
implied  in  this  statement  of  President  Hayes, 
made  some  forty  years  ago. 

President  Hayes  did  not  heal  the  wounds  in 
flicted  by  war  and  by  a  misconceived  policy  of 
reconstruction,  but  he  set  the  broken  bones,  and 

292 


RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES 

Time  is  knitting  together  again  the  North  and 
the  South;  he  did  not  solve  the  race  problem,  but 
he  did  much  to  create  that  era  of  good  feeling 
which  has  enabled  the  best  men  in  both  races 
to  understand  each  other  and  to  cooperate  in 
movements  for  their  mutual  welfare;  he  did  not 
accomplish  the  purification  of  government,  but 
he  did  give  a  new  impulse  to  that  movement  for 
political  purity  carried  forward  subsequently 
by  his  successors  in  office,  preeminently  by 
Grover  Cleveland  and  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
until  "A  public  office  is  a  public  trust"  has  come 
to  be  recognized,  at  least  in  theory,  as  a  sound  po 
litical  principle;  he  did  not  succeed  in  wholly  pre 
venting  the  endeavour  to  give  us  all  plenty  of 
money  by  making  it  cheap,  but  he  halted  that 
proceeding  and  gave  the  sober  second  thought  of 
the  American  people  time  to  develop  and  assert 
itself;  he  did  not  fall  into  the  error  of  thinking 
that  a  people  will  be  made  temperate  if  they  are 
prohibited  from  drinking,  but  his  example  did 
more  than  perhaps  we  know  toward  cultivating 
in  the  nation  a  habit  of  total  abstinence  from 
intoxicating  liquors  which  laid  the  foundation  for 
national  prohibition. 

During  Mr.  Hayes's  Presidency  I,  an  editor, 
was  studying  and  interpreting  current  history. 
My  admiration  for  Mr.  Hayes  steadily  grew 
while  he  was  making  history.  I  admired  his 

293 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

masterful  conscience,  his  gentle  strength,  his 
non-combative  courage,  his  unconquerable  pa 
tience.  I  admired  him  for  the  men  he  brought 
about  him  as  his  counsellors  and  for  the  success 
he  achieved  against  great  odds.  And  when  I 
planned  this  series  of  "Silhouettes  of  my  Con 
temporaries,"  I  eagerly  embraced  the  opportunity 
it  gave  me  to  sketch  the  portrait  of  a  states 
man  whose  character  and  difficulties  the  country 
too  little  realized  then  and  whose  service  the 
country  has  too  little  appreciated  since.  Both 
are  indicated  by  the  title  I  have  ventured  to 
give  to  him:  Rutherford  B.  Hayes — Peace 
maker. 


294 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  LABOUR  LEADER 

OF  COURSE  I  cannot  give  a  portrait  of 
the  greatest  statesman  of  his  time  in  a 
score  of  pages.  But  these  are  not  por 
traits:  they  are  silhouettes,  shadow  pictures, 
faded  photographs,  half-awakened  memories  of 
impressions  left  on  the  mind  of  an  octogenarian 
by  some  of  his  contemporaries.  Some  of  them 
I  knew  intimately,  some  of  them  personally  not 
at  all,  not  one  of  them  gave  me  a  sitting.  Not 
one  of  them  did  I  sketch  at  the  time.  But  all 
of  them  I  studied.  Their  places  and  current 
history  I  endeavour  to  discern;  the  divine  mean 
ing  of  their  lives  I  endeavour  to  read. 

William  Lloyd  Garrison,  John  Brown,  John  C. 
Fremont,  General  David  Hunter,  all  attempted 
to  be  emancipators.  But  none  of  them  saw  what 
Abraham  Lincoln  saw  so  clearly,  that  slavery 
was  an  unjust  form  of  labour  and  that  any  form 
of  so-called  free  labour,  if  dominated  by  the 
same  spirit  of  greed,  was  also  unjust.  He  was 
the  first,  and  still  remains  the  greatest,  American 
Labour  leader. 

In  1856  Buchanan  defeated  John  C.  Fre 
mont  for  the  Presidency.  The  election  took 

295 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

place  in  November;  I  was  not  of  age  until 
December.  Therefore,  I  could  not  vote.  But 
I  could  do  the  work  of  an  enthusiastic  boy  in  the 
campaign,  and  I  did.  Fremont's  defeat  was 
a  disappointment,  but  not  a  discouragement. 
The  pitiable  affair  of  Buchanan's  administration 
added  unnumbered  recruits  to  the  Republican 
party,  and  converted  the  party  enthusiasm  of 
the  previous  campaigners  into  a  religious  en 
thusiasm.  I  was  never  an  admirer  of  Seward; 
he  was  too  canny.  I  had  no  use  for  Stephen 
Douglas;  I  think  better  of  him  now  than  I  did 
then.  I  had  barely  heard  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
In  those  days  "the  Wild  and  Woolly  West"  was  a 
long  way  off  from  New  York  City.  And  when 
in  1860  he  lectured  in  Cooper  Union  I  managed 
to  get  a  ticket.  I  was  then  in  my  twenty-fourth 
year. 

The  city  was  not  pro-slavery,  but  it  was  anti- 
abolition  and  anti -agitation.  King  Cotton  ruled 
the  market  place,  the  press,  the  schools,  the 
churches.  There  was  a  conspiracy  of  silence. 
Everybody  said,  "Hush!"  No!  Not  every 
body.  There  were  voices  of  protest  here  and 
there:  from  a  merchant,  a  lawyer,  a  newspaper, 
a  clergyman.  The  violence  of  some  of  these 
protests  intensified  the  general  apprehension. 
An  opinion  quite  commonly  entertained  was  ex 
pressed  with  uncommon  clearness  and  courage 

296 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

by  Charles  O'Connor,  a  leader  of  the  New  York 
bar,  who  said  of  slavery: 

It  is  fit  and  proper;  it  is  in  its  own  nature,  as  an  insti 
tution,  beneficial  to  both  races;  and  the  effect  of  this  as 
sertion  is  not  diminished  by  our  admitting  that  many  faults 
are  practised  under  it. 

But  faint  echoes  of  the  Lincoln-Douglas 
debates,  in  Illinois,  had  crossed  the  continent. 
Curiosity,  but  not  conscience,  was  aroused. 
Cooper  Union  was  packed  with  an  expectant 
audience  which  had  come,  much  as  the  audience 
on  Mars  Hill  went  to  hear  St.  Paul,  not  hostile, 
not  sympathetic,  simply  curious.  I  recall  the 
scene,  and  as  I  describe  the  present  faded  picture, 
I  wonder  how  far  it  truly  portrays  the  reality — 
the  hushed  expectancy  of  the  audience,  the  orator 
on  the  platform,  a  tall  figure,  ungainly  but 
erect,  virile,  with  no  trace  of  that  slouchiness 
which  tradition  attributes  to  him,  a  homely  face 
but  a  compelling  presence,  a  carrying  voice  easily 
heard  but  never  vociferous,  little  movement,  few 
gestures,  no  stories,  no  jests,  no  pictures,  no 
concessions  to  prejudice,  but  no  scorn  and  no 
invective — simply  a  calm,  direct,  unanswerable 
appeal  to  the  reason  and  the  conscience.  "If 
slavery  is  right,"  he  said,  "there  is  nothing 
that  the  South  asks  of  us  which  we  ought  not 
to  grant.  If  slavery  is  wrong  we  have  no  right 

297 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

to  permit  its  establishment  in  territories  under 
our  control." 

That  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  his  speech  as 
it  remains  in  my  mind  to-day,  sixty-one  years 
after  it  was  delivered.  And  I  went  out,  as  did 
hundreds  of  others,  that  night  from  that  meeting 
an  enthusiastic  disciple  and  follower  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  The  faith  in  him  then  inspired  never 
weakened  in  the  darkest  days  of  the  Civil  War. 
I  sometimes  doubted  what  the  issue  of  that  war 
would  be,  but  never  for  a  moment  doubted  that  it 
was  a  righteous  war.  There  were  pacifists  then  as 
there  have  been  more  recently ;  but  thelessonl  then 
learned  I  never  forgot.  It  is  eternally  true  that 
there  is  something  better  than  Peace: — Justice. 

In  this  sketch  I  had  written  thus  far  in  my  bed 
room  in  the  early  morning,  rising  before  light  in  an 
endeavour  to  preserve  the  picture  as  it  came  to  me 
in  the  night,  before  the  life  of  the  day  had  obscured 
it.  Since  then  I  have  compared  my  recollection 
of  the  speech  with  the  official  report  in  the  vol 
umes  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  speeches  and  letters, 
and  have  found  that  I  have  stated,  almost  in  the 
words  of  the  great  American  prophet,  the  conclu 
sions  to  which  in  that  ever-memorable  address  he 
sought  to  lead  his  audience. 

After  his  election  preparations  for  secession 
were  carried  on  by  the  aggressive  and  determined 

298 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

advocates  of  a  new  Southern  empire  founded  on 
slavery  as  its  corner  stone.  Some  men  were 
cajoled  by  an  elusive  dream  of  political  am 
bition;  some  were  coerced  by  fear  of  a  civil  war. 
Before  Mr.  Lincoln's  inauguration  seven  South 
ern  states  had  formally  adopted  ordinances  of 
secession.  In  the  North  lovers  of  the  Union, 
lovers  of  peace,  yes,  and  lovers  of  liberty,  fearing 
that  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  would  be  the 
death  knell  of  liberty  throughout  the  world,  united 
in  an  endeavour  to  find  some  compromise  be 
tween  right  and  wrong.  Political  enemies  as 
sailed,  political  friends  besought;  but  Mr.  Lincoln 
never  hesitated,  never  wavered,  never  said  a 
word  nor  did  an  act  incongruous  with  that 
simple  and  fundamental  declaration:  If  slavery 
is  right  let  us  concede  everything;  if  slavery  is 
wrong  there  is  nothing  we  can  concede. 

His  first  inaugural  included  a  pathetic  appeal 
to  his  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen:  "You 
have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the 
government,  while  I  shall  have  the  most  solemn 
one  to  "preserve,  protect  and  defend  it."  When 
the  war  broke  upon  the  country  he  met  it  with 
the  same  faith  in  righteousness  and  a  God  of 
righteousness.  When  General  David  Hunter 
attempted  to  abolish  slavery  in  a  state  occupied 
by  his  troops,  Mr.  Lincoln  reversed  the  General's 
action.  When  it  became  clear  to  him  and  he 

299 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORABIES 

could  make  it  clear  to  the  nation  that  slavery 
was  aiding  the  assailants  of  the  nation  and  that 
its  abolition  would  weaken  them,  he  proclaimed 
emancipation  as  a  war  measure.  When,  as  the 
war  drew  toward  its  close,  semi-official  propo 
sitions  for  peace  were  made  to  him  he  replied 
that  "The  war  will  cease  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  whenever  it  shall  have  ceased  on  the 
part  of  those  who  began  it";  and  he  repeated 
and  re-repeated  that  three  things  were  indis 
pensable  to  peace :  the  restoration  of  the  national 
authority  throughout  all  the  States,  the  ac 
ceptance  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
and  the  disbanding  of  all  forces  hostile  to  the 
Government.  When  after  more  than  three  years 
of  war  had  passed  and  discouraged  Democrats 
were  beginning  to  affirm  that  it  was  a  failure, 
and  discouraged  Republicans  were  looking  about 
for  new  issues  and  a  new  leader,  Lincoln  met 
growing  discontent  by  the  affirmation  "While 
I  remain  in  my  present  position  I  shall  not  at 
tempt  to  retract  or  modify  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation,  nor  shall  I  return  to  slavery  any 
person  who  is  free  by  the  terms  of  that  proc 
lamation,  nor  by  any  of  the  acts  of  Congress. 
If  the  people  should,  by  whatever  mode  or 
means,  make  it  an  executive  duty  to  re-enslave 
such  persons,  another,  and  not  I,  must  be  their 
instrument  to  perform  it."  And  when  he  was 

300 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

reflected  by  an  overwhelming  majority  his 
second  inaugural  repeated  with  a  saddened  but 
unwavering  heart  the  principles  of  his  pre 
election  speech:  "With  malice  toward  none;  with 
charity  for  all;  with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God 
gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish 
the  work  we  are  in;  to  bind  up  the  nation's 
wounds;  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne 
the  battle,  and  for  his  widow,  and  his  orphan- 
to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just 
and  lasting  peace  among  ourselves,  and  with  all 
nations." 

Throughout  the  Civil  War  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
subject  to  violent  criticism,  sometimes  honest, 
sometimes  unscrupulous  from  two  opposite 
quarters.  The  radical  anti-slavery  men  of  the 
East,  especially  of  New  England,  criticized 
him  for  not  initiating  at  once  a  policy  of 
emancipation.  Conservatives  in  the  great  com 
mercial  cities  and  in  the  Middle  West  criticized 
him  for  the  policy  of  emancipation  and  for  re 
fusing  proposals  for  compromise.  Mr.  Lincoln 
disregarded  both  groups  of  critics  and  seldom 
replied  to  either  group.  They  both  wanted  him 
to  govern;  he  believed  and  consistently  acted 
on  the  belief  that  the  people  were  to  govern  and 
that  he  was  elected  to  carry  out  their  will.  The 
party  which  had  elected  him  was  pledged  to 
maintain  the  Union  and  neither  to  interfere  with 

301 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

slavery  in  the  States  nor  to  allow  it  in  the  Terri 
tories,  and  to  carry  out  that  policy  they  had 
elected  a  man  who  had  declared  in  no  uncertain 
terms  his  hostility  to  slavery  as  essentially  and 
absolutely  wrong.  From  the  fulfilment  of  that 
pledge  Mr.  Lincoln  never  varied;  for  the  method 
of  its  fulfilment  he  waited  until  he  could  lead 
the  will  of  the  people  to  the  measure  which  he 
saw  to  be  necessary. 

During  the  Civil  War  I  was  pastor  of  a  Congre 
gational  church  in  Terre  Haute,  Indiana,  and, 
born  and  brought  up  in  the  East,  could  under 
stand  the  public  sentiment  both  of  the  Eastern 
and  the  Mid- Western  states.  There  was  prob 
ably  no  Northern  state  in  which  there  was  less 
anti-slavery  sentiment  and  more  anti-abolition 
sentiment  than  in  Indiana.  I  believed  then, 
as  I  believe  now,  that  the  President  was  right  in 
waiting  until  he  could  educate  a  national  senti 
ment  which  would  justify  emancipation.  When 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  issued,  it 
was  the  act  of  the  American  people,  though 
President  Lincoln  held  the  pen  with  which  it  was 
signed.  It  was  this  fact  which  gave  to  that 
Proclamation  its  efficiency. 

In  May,  1860,  the  Congregational  Association 
of  Indiana  passed  resolutions  urging  the  better 
observance  of  the  Sabbath  and  protesting  against 
its  too-prevalent  desecration,  but  saying  nothing 

302 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

concerning  slavery.  A  year  later  they  passed 
resolutions  condemning  slavery  as  antagonistic 
to  humanity,  to  the  Gospel,  "and  to  those  prin 
ciples  of  liberty  which  underlie  our  nation." 
Three  years  later,  when  the  proposals  for  peace 
founded  upon  compromise-  with  the  South  were 
about  to  be  passed  upon  by  the  nation,  the 
same  Association  condemned  compromise  and 
approved  immediate  universal  and  irrevocable 
emancipation  and  the  employment  of  coloured 
troops  in  the  army  and  navy  as  national  soldiers. 
The  difference  between  these  three  sets  of  reso 
lutions  affords  a  fair  indication  of  the  progress 
of  public  sentiment  in  the  nation  under  Abraham 
Lincoln's  leadership  toward  the  principles  af 
firmed  by  him  in  his  Cooper-Union  speech. 

That  I  can  remember  after  sixty  years  and 
restate  with  almost  verbal  accuracy  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cooper-Union 
speech;  that  the  only  references  to  slavery  in  the 
resolutions  of  the  Congregational  Association 
of  Indiana  in  1861  were  introduced  by  me  as 
amendments  to  the  resolutions  formulated  by  the 
Committee  on  Resolutions;  and  that,  accepting 
Mr.  Lincoln's  fundamental  belief  that  slavery 
was  only  a  part  of  the  labour  question  when 
slavery  was  abolished,  I  devoted  myself,  in  the 
pulpit,  on  the  platform,  and  in  the  press  to  the 
propagation  of  his  principles  of  Industrial  Democ- 

303 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

racy,  are  indications  of  the  influence  which  he 
had  upon  the  mind  and  the  conscience  of  one  of 
his  fellow-citizens. 

We  may  be  sure  that  the  same  faith  in  right 
eousness  and  a  God  of  righteousness  would  in 
spire  Abraham  Lincoln  in  his  counsels  to  the 
nation  in  its  present  perplexity.  There  may  be 
some  doubt  what  policy  he  would  advise  concern 
ing  our  international  problems,  but  it  is  certain 
that  he  would  not  put  "safety  first,"  and  that  he 
would  advise  both  against  our  assuming  re 
sponsibilities  for  the  government  of  the  Euro 
pean  States  and  against  evasion  of  responsibilities 
which  the  God  of  history  has,  by  the  course  of 
events,  laid  upon  us. 

And  we  can  be  in  no  doubt  as  to  what  would 
be  his  position  on  the  labour  question.  For  the 
principles  which  ought  to  guide  our  action  have 
been  very  explicitly  though  briefly  indicated  in  his 
speeches  and  by  his  acts. 

To  report  at  length  his  utterance  directly  or 
by  necessary  implication  bearing  on  the  labour 
problem  of  to-day  would  take  me  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  this  brief  sketch.  It  must  suffice  here 
to  point  out  briefly  the  direction  in  which  his 
principles  and  his  spirit  make  for  the  solution 
of  what  is  perhaps  now  the  most  perplexing  and 
difficult  problem  for  the  human  race  to  solve. 
But  that  the  slavery  question  was  one  phase  of 

304 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  labour  question,  Mr.  Lincoln  declared  in 
explicit  terms.  "The  existing  rebellion,"  he 
wrote  to  a  committee  from  the  Working  Men's 
Association  of  New  York,  "is,  in  fact,  a  war  upon 
the  rights  of  all  working  people."  And  in  de 
scribing  his  own  experience  he  identified  him 
self  with  working  men  and  made  that  experience 
illustrate  and  enforce  the  lesson  which  he  wished 
to  impress  upon  them.  He  said: 

"I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  twenty-five  years 
ago  I  was  a  hired  labourer  mending  rails,  at  work  on  a 
flatboat — just  what  might  happen  to  a  poor  man's  son.  I 
want  every  man  to  have  the  chance — and  I  believe  a  black 
man  is  entitled  to  it — in  which  he  can  better  his  condition, 
when  he  may  look  forward  and  hope  to  be  a  hired  labourer 
this  year  and  the  next,  work  for  himself  afterward,  and 
finally  hire  men  to  work  for  him.  That  is  the  true 
system.  .  .  .  Then  you  can  better  your  condition, 
and  so  it  may  go  on  and  on  in  one  ceaseless  round  so  long 
as  man  exists  on  the  face  of  the  earth." 

We  may  be  sure  that  he  who  never  denounced 
the  slaveholder,  who  never  did  anything  to 
intensify  the  prejudice  of  the  South  against  the 
North  or  the  North  against  the  South,  would 
enter  into  no  class  war,  would  never  denounce 
the  rich  to  the  poor  or  the  poor  to  the  rich. 

He  who  told  the  farmers  of  Wisconsin  that  the 
reason  why  there  were  more  attempts  to  flatter 
them  than  any  other  class  was  because  they  could 

305 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

cast  more  votes,  but  that  to  his  thinking  they 
were  neither  better  nor  worse  than  other  people, 
would  never  flatter  the  mechanic  class  to  win 
for  himself  or  his  party  a  labour  vote. 

He  who  in  1864  held  with  working  men  that 
"the  strongest  bond  of  human  sympathy  out 
side  of  the  family  relation  should  be  one  uniting 
all  working  people  of  all  nations  and  tongues  and 
kindreds"  would  not  condemn  labour  unions. 

He  who  at  the  same  time  said  to  them,  "Let 
not  him  who  is  houseless  pull  down  the  house  of 
another,  but  let  him  work  diligently  and  build 
one  for  himself,"  would  condemn  all  lawless  acts 
of  violence  whether  against  the  employer  of 
labour  or  against  the  non-union  labourer  who 
is  employed. 

He  who  thanked  God  that  we  have  a  system 
of  labour  where  there  can  be  a  strike — a  point 
where  the  working  man  may  stop  working — would 
not  deny  this  right  to  the  working  man  of  to-day. 

He  who  said  in  1860,  "I  don't  believe  in  a  law 
to  prevent  a  man  from  getting  rich,  and  I  do 
believe  in  allowing  the  humblest  man  an  equal 
chance  to  get  rich  with  any  one  else,"  would  have 
found,  not  in  war  upon  the  wealthy,  but  in 
equal  opportunity  for  all,  the  remedy  for  social 
and  industrial  inequalities. 

He  who  condemned  the  mudsill  theory,  the 
theory  that  labour  and  education  are  incom- 

306 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

patible  and  that  "a  blind  horse  upon  a  treadmill 
is  a  perfect  illustration  of  what  a  labourer  should 
be,  all  the  better  for  being  blind  so  that  he  could 
not  kick  understandingly,"  would  be  the  earnest 
advocate  of  child  labour  laws  and  industrial 
education. 

He  who  argued  that  "As  the  Author  of  man 
makes  every  individual  with  one  head  and  one 
pair  of  hands  it  was  probably  intended  that 
heads  and  hands  should  cooperate  as  friends, 
and  that  that  particular  head  should  direct  and 
control  that  pair  of  hands,"  would  believe  in 
cooperation  between  Labour  and  Capital,  leading 
on  to  the  time  when  labourers  should  become 
capitalists  and  capitalists  should  become  labour 
ers. 

He  who  held  in  1854  that  "The  legitimate 
object  of  government  is  to  do  for  the  people  what 
needs  to  be  done,  but  which  they  cannot  by 
individual  effort  do  at  all  or  do  so  well  for  them 
selves,"  would  neither  believe  in  the  night- 
watchman  theory  of  government  which  allows 
it  to  do  nothing  but  police  duty,  nor  in  the  social 
istic  theory  of  government  which  leaves  nothing 
for  individual  effort  to  do  for  itself. 

Two  systems  of  industry  are  to-day  proposed 
to  the  American  people  for  adoption. 

One  proposes  to  destroy  capitalism  by  sub 
stituting  for  the  despotism  of  capital  the  despo- 

307 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

tism  of  the  proletariat.     It  has  been  recently 
stated  by  Lenin  in   the  following  paragraph: 

Any  leader  of  Marx  who  fails  to  understand  that  so  long 
as  Capitalist  society  exists  every  serious  conflict  between 
the  classes  will  eventuate  either  in  an  exclusive  dictator 
ship  of-  the  Bourgeoisie  or  an  exclusive  dictatorship  of  a 
proletariat,  shows  his  incapacity  to  understand  either  the 
economic  or  the  political  reasoning  of  our  great  leader. 

The  other  plan  proposes  to  destroy  capitalism 
by  making  it  possible  for  every  intelligent,  in 
dustrious,  able-bodied  citizen  to  become  a  capi 
talist.  It  was  defined  by  Abraham  Lincoln  with 
great  clearness  in  his  first  Annual  Message  and 
to  that  statement  he  attached  such  importance 
that  he  repeated  it  two  years  and  a  half  later  in 
his  letter  to  the  Working  Men's  Association  of 
New  York: 

Labour  is  prior  to,  and  independent  of,  capital.  Capital 
is  only  the  fruit  of  labour,  and  could  never  have  existed  if 
labour  had  not  first  existed.  Labour  is  the  superior  of 
capital,  and  deserves  much  the  higher  consideration. 
Capital  has  its  rights,  which  are  as  worthy  of  protection  as 
any  other  rights.  Nor  is  it  denied  that  there  is,  and  prob 
ably  always  will  be,  a  relation  between  labour  and  capital 
producing  mutual  benefits.  The  error  is  in  assuming  that 
the  whole  labour  of  the  community  exists  within  that  re 
lation.  .  .  .  There  is  not,  of  necessity,  any  such  thing 
as  the  free  hired  labourer  being  fixed  to  that  condition  for 
life.  Many  independent  men  everywhere  in  these  States 

308 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

a  few  years  back  in  their  lives  were  hired  labourers.  The 
prudent,  penniless  beginner  in  the  world  labours  for  wages 
awhile,  saves  a  surplus  with  which  to  buy  tools  and  land 
for  himself,  then  labours  on  his  own  account  another  while, 
and  at  length  hires  another  new  beginner  to  help  him. 
This  is  the  just  and  generous  and  prosperous  system  which 
opens  the  way  to  all — gives  hope  to  all,  and  consequent 
energy  and  progress  and  improvement  of  condition  to  all. 

What  is  the  choice  of  the  American  people? 
Do  they  prefer  Communism  or  Industrial  De 
mocracy?  The  life  and  teaching  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  make  perfectly  clear  his  answer  to  that 
question,  and  they  point  out  the  successive  steps 
which  labour  leaders  and  captains  of  industry 
must  take  to  reach  the  goal  which  he  commends 
to  them.  For  this  reason  I  count  Abraham  Lin 
coln  America's  greatest  Labour  Leader. 


309 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT,  PREACHER  OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS 

PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  was  reading  a 
part  of  one  of  his  messages  to  a  group  of 
his  friends  whose  advice  he  desired.    Sud 
denly  he  stopped  at  the  conclusion  of  a  para 
graph  with  the  self-criticism:    "I  suppose  my 
critics  will  call  that  preaching.     But  I  have  got 
such  a  bully  pulpit. ' '     Yes !    He  did  have  a  great 
pulpit,  and  he  was  a  great  preacher. 

His  greatest  service  to  the  world  was  not  his 
initiation  of  a  policy  of  National  Conservation, 
nor  the  Russo-Japanese  Peace,  nor  the  Panama 
Canal — great  as  were  these  services.  He  did  more 
than  any  other  public  man  in  our  history,  more 
even  than  Abraham  Lincoln  or  Grover  Cleve 
land,  to  transform  politics  from  a  corrupt 
traffic  to  a  public  service.  He  habitually  acted 
on  Grover  Cleveland's  motto:  "A  public  office 
is  a  public  trust."  And  he  inspired  the  younger 
men  of  his  generation  with  the  faith  of  Ruther 
ford  B.  Hayes  that  he  serves  his  party  best  who 
best  serves  his  country.  The  professional  poli 
ticians  of  the  Reconstruction  Period  had  brought 
politics  into  disrepute.  In  my  early  manhood 

310 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

to  take  any  active  part  in  political  life  was  to 
invite  suspicion;  the  affirmation:  "I  take  no  in 
terest  in  politics"  was  a  common  boast.  One 
of  the  popular  arguments  against  suffrage  for 
women  was  that  to  take  part  in  political  activity 
would  degrade  them.  The  day  of  Webster  and 
Clay  had  passed,  the  day  of  Elaine  and  Conkling 
and  Platt  had  come.  President  Hayes  had  se 
cured  in  his  cabinet  men  equally  eminent  for 
their  integrity  and  their  ability,  and  had  main 
tained  civil-service  reform  in  his  administration 
in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  Blaine  and  Conkling; 
but  he  could  not  be  re-nominated.  That  to-day 
American  political  life  appeals  to  young  men 
as  a  career  worthy  of  their  ambition  is  largely 
due  to  two  men — Grover  Cleveland  and  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt. 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  most  striking  intellectual  char 
acteristics  were  clearness  of  vision  and  energy  in 
action.  His  critics  thought  him  to  be  impulsive. 
If  impulsiveness  means  acting  first  and  thinking 
afterwards,Mr.Rooseveltwasnotimpulsive.  He 
never  leaped  before  he  looked;  but  it  did  not 
take  him  long  to  look.  His  was  the  most  alert 
nature  I  have  ever  known.  He  was  quick  to 
perceive,  quick  to  decide,  quick  to  act.  Having 
his  cooperation  in  the  Outlook  for  five  years  and 
meeting  him  in  editorial  conference  almost  every 
week  when  he  was  at  home,  I  had  some  oppor- 

311 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

tunity  of  becoming  acquainted  with  his  methods 
and  habits.  He  always  listened  with  respect  to 
the  opinions  of  the  youngest  of  our  staff.  He  was 
always  ready  to  give  the  reason  for  his  own 
opinion.  And  he  was  always  ready  to  reconsider 
that  opinion  if  any  one  had  new  light  to  throw 
upon  the  question.  But  I  never  knew  him  to 
take  counsel  of  his  prejudices,  his  passions,  or  his 
self-interest.  He  was  a  member  of  our  staff 
during  the  Progressive  Campaign,  when  he  was 
a  Presidential  candidate  in  perhaps  the  most 
heated  political  campaign  of  our  country  subse 
quent  to  the  Civil  War.  Never  once  did  he  even 
remotely  suggest  the  question,  what  effect  might 
any  proposed  utterance  of  the  Outlook  have 
upon  his  political  fortunes;  I  do  not  think  he 
ever  once  suggested  the  question,  what  effect 
might  it  have  on  the  fortunes  of  the  Progressive 
party.  The  three  questions  which  apparently 
controlled  him  were :  What  is  truth  ?  How  nmch 
of  that  truth  can  we  get  across  to  the  readers  of 
the  Outlook?  How  can  that  best  be  done? 

There  were  two  reasons  for  the  widespread  im 
pression  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  acted  impulsively. 

I  frequently  play  solitaire  as  a  brain  rest,  and 
I  recommend  the  game  to  the  brain-weary.  In 
playing  I  have  to  study  the  relation  of  each  card 
on  the  table  to  the  other  cards  and  take  time 
to  determine  what  my  play  shall  be.  Similarly, 

312 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

if  a  complicated  question  is  put  before  me,  I 
must  take  time  to  consider  the  relations  of 
its  various  elements  before  coming  to  a  decision. 
I  should  be  ill  fitted  to  be  the  editor  of  a  daily 
paper.  Mr.  Roosevelt  saw  at  a  glance  all  the 
cards  on  the  table,  all  the  elements  of  any  com 
plicated  problem  put  before  him.  Was  it  a 
national  problem?  What  would  be  the  effect  of 
the  proposed  legislation  on  the  working  classes, 
on  the  employing  classes,  on  the  shippers,  on  the 
middlemen,  on  the  purchasing  classes,  on  Con 
gress  and  on  the  party  whose  support  was 
necessary  to  secure  the  legislation?  Was  it  an 
international  problem  ?  What  would  be  the  effect 
of  the  proposed  policy  on  our  friendly  relations 
with  other  nations? — On  England?  On  France? 
On  Italy?  On  Japan?  To  me  the  various  ele 
ments  of  such  a  complicated  problem  are  often 
like  the  dissevered  portions  of  a  picture  puzzle:  it 
takes  me  some  time  to  see  their  relations  to  each 
other.  Mr.  Roosevelt  generally  seemed  to  see 
them  instantly  in  their  real  relations;  to  see  at 
once  the  completed  picture.  And  all  the  re 
sources  of  his  past  experiences  and  his  various 
reading — and  he  was  a  rapid  and  omnivorous 
reader — were  all  pigeon-holed  and  indexed  in  a 
well-ordered  mind;  and  memory,  like  a  well- 
trained  private  secretary,  was  ready  to  hand  out 
to  him  whatever  fact  he  needed. 

313 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

The  other  characteristic  was  his  habitual 
reference  of  special  questions  to  certain  fixed 
principles  by  which  he  had  previously  deter 
mined  to  be  governed.  To  illustrate:  If  he 
had  occasion  to  deal  with  a  great  organization 
he  would  deal  with  whatever  representative 
that  organization  had  selected.  If  as  President, 
he  had  to  deal  with  England,  he  would  deal  with 
the  English  Ambassador;  if  with  Germany, 
with  the  German  Ambassador.  That  he  had  no 
liking  for  the  ambassador,  or  even  no  faith  in 
him,  made  no  difference.  So  if  he  had  to  deal 
with  Pennsylvania  or  with  New  York,  he  dealt 
with  Mr.  Quay  or  with  Mr.  Platt.  Whether  he 
liked  them  or  disliked  them,  whether  he  had 
faith  in  them  or  distrusted  them,  made  to  him  no 
difference.  Acting  upon  the  same  principle,  if 
he  had  to  deal  with  the  Republican  party,  he 
dealt  with  the  leaders  of  that  party  and  appealed 
from  the  leaders  to  the  rank  and  file  only  as  a 
last  resort.  Following  his  election  as  governor 
I  was  invited  to  the  Executive  Mansion  at 
Albany  to  spend  the  night.  He  had  invited 
some  of  the  younger  members  of  the  newly 
elected  Assembly  to  meet  him  in  the  evening. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  conference,  he  said  to 
them  something  like  this:  "If  you  have  come 
to  Albany  to  represent  the  interests  of  your 
district,  I  shall  always  be  glad  to  see  you  and 

314 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

consult  with  you;  if  any  of  you  have  come  here 
to  do  the  bidding  of  your  boss  I  care  no  more  to 
consult  with  you  than  with  any  other  kind  of 
cattle.  I  prefer  to  consult  directly  with  your 
boss." 

I  am  not  here  considering  whether  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  principle  was  right  or  wrong,  though, 
personally,  I  think  it  right.  I  am  only  trying 
here  to  point  out  to  my  readers  one  of  the  reasons 
why  he  was  able  to  decide  many  questions  so 
promptly.  He  had  practically  decided  them 
beforehand  by  his  adoption  of  a  general  prin 
ciple  to  which  all  questions  of  a  certain  class 
could  be  instantly  referred. 

I  have  sometimes  dissented  from  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  quick  decision  of  a  question  and  been  some 
times  inclined  to  criticize  what  at  first  seemed 
to  me  his  impulsive  action.  But  when  I  have 
given  to  the  problem  the  deliberate  study  which 
my  temper  requires,  I  have  come  either  to  the 
conclusion  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  correct  or  else 
that  the  difference  between  us  was  less  than  I 
had  thought  it  to  be.  When  he  ordered  the 
discharge  of  the  Brownsville  soldiers,  some  of 
them  for  riotous  conduct,  others  for  sympathy 
with  it,  I  thought  he  had  acted  rashly.  I  went 
to  the  Law  Library,  spent  a  morning  in  in 
vestigation  of  the  authorities,  and  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  had  acted  fully  within  his 

315 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

constitutional  and  legal  powers  and  was  fully 
sustained  by  military  precedents.  Later,  tak 
ing  up  the  official  reports,  I  could  come  to  no 
other  conclusion  than  that  he  was  equally  sus 
tained  by  the  facts;  and  this  was  the  result,  as 
the  reader  will  remember,  reached  by  the  United 
States  Senate  after  three  or  four  official  investi 
gations.  He  opposed  the  Arbitration  Treaty 
negotiated  by  the  Taft  Administration.  I  sup 
ported  that  treaty.  His  views  and  mine  were 
both  given  to  the  readers  of  the  Outlook  in  its 
pages.  But  when  our  views  were  compared, 
we  found  the  difference  amounted  simply  to 
this :  We  both  agreed  that  the  new  treaty  could 
accomplish  nothing  more  for  peace  than  the 
treaty  which  it  supplanted.  He  was  opposed 
to  it  because  it  assumed  to  do  what  it  could  not 
do.  I  should  have  opposed  negotiating  it; 
but,  as  it  had  been  negotiated,  I  thought  its 
adoption  could  do  no  harm  and  might  do  a  little 
good,  and  that  its  rejection  could  do  no  good 
and  might  do  a  little  harm.  I  do  not  recall  a 
single  important  instance  in  which  my  slowly 
formed  opinion  has  differed  from  his  almost  in 
stantaneous  decision  more  widely  than  in  the 
case  of  the  Arbitration  Treaty. 

The  charge  was  made  against  Mr.  Roose 
velt  in  1912  by  so  wise  a  man  as  Mr.  Eliot, 
President  Emeritus  of  Harvard  University, 

316 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

that:  "The  candidate  of  the  Progressive  party 
has  shown  himself  capable  while  in  power  of 
taking  grave  public  action — which,  of  course, 
seemed  to  him  wise  and  right — in  disregard  of 
constitutional  and  legal  limitations."  This 
charge  has  been  often  made,  and  the  friends 
of  Mr.  Roosevelt  have  often  called  for  specifi 
cations  of  it;  but  the  specifications  have  never 
been  given.  We  have  never  been  told  what 
specific  clause  of  the  Constitution  or  what 
specific  provision  of  law  he  ever  disregarded 
by  any  act.  In  fact,  during  his  long  executive 
life  as  Governor  of  New  York  State  and  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  no  act  of  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  and  no  legislation  which  he  has  recom 
mended  has  ever  been  declared  unconstitutional 
by  the  courts,  and  I  do  not  think  that  any 
administrative  act  of  his  as  Civil  Service  Com 
missioner,  Police  Commissioner,  and  Assistant 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  was  ever  set  aside  by  his 
superior  officers  because  by  it  he  transcended 
the  limits  of  his  legal  authority.  So  much  as 
to  his  supposed  impulsiveness. 

The  most  striking  moral  characteristic  of  Mr. 
Roosevelt  was  his  passion  for  righteousness. 

The  occasions  which  excite  a  man's  anger 
afford  an  excellent  indication  of  his  character. 
He  may  be  slow  to  express  his  admiration,  but 
in  anger  expression  is  apt  to  come  before  re- 

317 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

flection.  As  from  the  heat  of  water  bubbling 
to  the  surface  in  a  spring  one  perceives  the 
underground  heat,  so  from  the  fire  that  flashes 
from  the  eye  or  the  hot  words  that  leap  from  the 
lips  one  perceives  the  passion  beneath  the  sur 
face.  One  need  not  look  at  the  catalogue  for 
the  title  of  Hogarth's  famous  picture  "The 
Distressed  Musician" :  the  angry  face  which  looks 
out  upon  the  babel  of  sounds  that  issue  from 
the  London  street  is  unmistakably  that  of  one 
keenly  sensitive  to  discord. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  extraordinarily  pa 
tient — except  with  injustice.  That  he  never 
could  endure.  Whether  the  injustice  was  against 
himself  or  against  others  made  no  difference. 
Whether  the  evil  it  inflicted  was  little  or  great, 
whether  it  was  perpetrated  by  an  individual,  a 
group,  or  a  nation,  made  little  difference.  It  was 
the  wrong,  not  the  consequences  of  the  wrong, 
which  inflamed  his  resentment.  It  might  be  a 
cowboy  in  his  employ  putting  the  Roosevelt 
brand  on  a  calf  that  had  strayed  from  its  owner's 
herd;  it  might  be  Colombia  which  endeavoured 
by  one  and  the  same  transaction  to  cheat  France 
and  blackmail  America — his  wrath  was  irrepres 
sible  and  its  expression  in  action  instantaneous 
and  efficient.  The  cowboy  could  not  comprehend 
the  reason] for  his  instant  discharge;  and  there 
were  statesmen  and^editors  who  could  not  under- 

318 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

stand  the  instant  recognition  of  Panama's  inde 
pendence.  Both  the  cowboy  and  the  critics  were 
insensitive  to  injustice  if  it  promised  to  succeed. 

To  those  who  cannot  understand  the  divine 
command,  "Abhor  that  which  is  evil,"  the 
statement  that  Mr.  Roosevelt's  passionate  re 
sentment  of  injustice  was  the  secret  of  his  poise 
will  seem  incomprehensible.  Nevertheless,  the 
statement  is  true.  He  was  equally  indignant 
at  the  mob  which  hanged  a  defenseless  Negro 
without  giving  him  a  trial  and  at  the  Negro 
troop  which  ran  amuck  through  a  peaceful 
Southern  town;  equally  indignant  at  the  denial 
of  the  right  of  every  man  to  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness,  whether  the  denial  came 
from  a  labour  union  or  from  a  modern  feudal 
overlord.  If  he  were  living  with  us  now,  he 
would  be  equally  ready  to  condemn  Bolshevism 
and  to  condemn  the  autocracy  which  has  by  its 
oppression  cultivated  Bolshevism  in  Russia  and 
sown  the  seeds  of  the  same  horrible  harvest  in 
the  United  States;  equally  ready  to  condemn 
the  men  who  are  attacking  the  moral  foun 
dations  of  civilized  society  and  to  condemn  the 
men  who  would  take  advantage  of  this  attack 
to  reestablish  and  reinforce  the  wrongs  which 
made  that  attack  possible. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  was  "fighting  honest."  He 
abhorred  that  which  is  evil.  He  hated,  as 

319 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

David  did  the  enemies  of  Jehovah,  with  a  per 
fect  hatred,  impurities,  meannesses,  falsehoods, 
shams,  dishonesties  of  every  description.  Easy 
going  good  nature  is  a  natural  American  defect, 
and  Mr.  Roosevelt's  hearty  and,  in  the  main, 
healthy  hatred  of  wrong  doing  made  him  both 
the  most  loved  and  probably  the  most  hated  of 
American  public  men  of  his  time. 

It  is  true  that  his  very  virtues  have  some 
times  led  him  into  unjust  judgments.  His 
own  understanding  was  so  quick  that  he  some 
times  failed  to  appreciate  the  extraordinary 
inability  of  many  men  correctly  to  understand 
others  or  to  interpret  correctly  themselves. 
This  inability  of  apparently  intelligent  men  to 
understand  others  is  illustrated  by  a  little  in 
cident  in  my  own  experience.  Once,  in  the  Out 
look,  I  said  that  Jesus  was  the  most  selfless  man 
that  ever  lived;  the  next  week  I  got  an  indignant 
letter  from  a  reader  asking  me  what  I  meant  by 
charging  that  Jesus  was  the  most  selfish  man 
that  ever  lived.  Men  sometimes  misunderstood 
Mr.  Roosevelt  and  men  sometimes  misunder 
stood  and  misinterpreted  themselves.  As  a 
result  he  received  into  what  the  press  called  his 
Ananias  Club  some  men  who  should  not  have 
been  admitted  to  it. 

Nevertheless,  his  judgment  against  wrong, 
whoever  committed  it,  was  generally  well  bal- 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

anced  and  essentially  just;  and  it  found  frequent 
expression  in  private  conversation  and  private 
correspondence  no  less  than  in  public  utterance 
and  public  acts.  Two  sentences  from  one  of  his 
personal  letters  to  me,  written  in  1P16,  at  the 
time  when  a  national  railroad  strike  was  threat 
ened  in  order  to  coerce  Congress,  may  serve  here 
as  a  striking  illustration  of  his  universal  habit 
of  mind:  "I  think  it  is  as  foolish  and  as  wicked 
to  back  any  labour  union  which  is  wrong  as  to 
back  any  great  corporation  which  is  wrong. 
It  makes  no  difference  to  the  state  whether  we 
suffer  from  a  White  Terror  or  a  Red  Terror; 
whether  the  tyranny  is  that  of  the  Ministers  of 
Louis  XV  or  that  of  Robespierre,  Danton,  and 
Marat."  And  he  coupled  this  statement  with 
one  defining  what  his  policy  would  have  been 
had  he  been  president  when  that  strike  was 
threatened  and  Congress  and  the  President 
yielded  to  it.  "I  should  tell  the  railroad  owners 
and  the  heads  of  the  Brotherhood  that  I  would 
appoint  a  commission  which  would  have  in 
cluded  men  like  Raymond  Robins  and  Patrick 
Morrissey,  and  that  every  question,  including 
the  eight-hour-law  question,  without  any  res 
ervation,  would  be  put  before  that  commission, 
and  that  I  would  tolerate  no  action  by  Congress 
in  advance  of  the  report  of  that  commission, 
and  that  I  would  tolerate  no  tie-up  of  the  trans- 

321 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

portation  systems  of  the  country,  and  that  I 
would  use  the  entire  armed  forces  of  the  country, 
if  necessary,  to  run  the  railroads  pending  the 
decision  of  the  Commission.  I  would  have  also 
stated  that  I  would  see  that  the  commission 
had  the  power  to  interpret  and  enforce  its  de 
crees,  so  that  the  men  need  have  no  fear  that 
the  railroad  managers  and  owners  would  twist 
that  arbitration  so  as  to  bear  against  them." 
In  a  matter  of  less  importance  he  acted  in  this 
spirit  in  dealing  with  a  strike  during  his  own 
administration.  In  1903  a  man  was  discharged 
from  the  Government  Printing  Office,  not  be 
cause  he  did  anything  wrong,  but  because  the 
Labour  Union  disciplined  him  and  demanded  that 
he  should,  therefore,  be  discharged,  and  enforced 
the  demand  by  the  threat  of  a  strike.  The 
President  promptly  reinstated  Miller  (the  man 
who  had  been  discharged)  and  to  a  correspondent 
who  protested  wrote  as  follows : 

I  have  notified  Palmer  that  he  must  reinstate  Miller  at 
once  and  then  I  will  have  an  investigation  made  and  see 
whether  or  not  he  has  done  anything  which  warrants  his 
discharge,  and  notify  all  those  under  him  that  while  there 
is  no  objection  to  the  employees  of  the  printing  office 
forming  a  union  or  belonging  to  a  union,  yet  that  on  the 
other  hand  I  will  not  tolerate  discrimination  against  a  man 
because  he  does  not  belong  to  the  union  any  more  than 
against  him  because  he  does  belong  to  it.  In  other  words, 

322 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

I  will  proceed  upon  the  only  plan  possible  for  a  self- 
respecting  American  president,  and  treat  each  man  on  his 
merits  as  a  man.  The  labour  unions  shall  have  a  square 
deal  and  the  corporation  shall  have  a  square  deal,  and  in 
addition  all  private  citizens  shall  have  a  square  deal. 

This  spirit  of  even-handed  justice  was  per 
haps  the  most  distinguishing  moral  characteristic 
of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  administration  from  his  first 
entrance  into  politics  in  1882  until  his  death. 
When  he  was  nominated  for  the  Assembly  by 
the  Republicans  in  1881,  in  the  twenty-third 
year  of  his  age,  his  political  sponsor  took  him  to 
canvass  the  district,  introduced  him  to  a  saloon 
keeper  of  importance  in  the  district  who  thought 
the  liquor  licences  were  too  high,  and  who  said 
that  he  counted  on  Mr.  Roosevelt,  if  elected,  to 
use  his  influence  for  their  reduction.  The  young 
candidate  replied  that  he  did  not  think  them 
high  enough  and  should  probably  use  his  influ 
ence  to  make  them  higher.  This  ended  his 
canvass  in  the  saloons,  but  he  was,  nevertheless, 
elected  for  three  successive  terms.  Appointed 
on  the  Civil  Service  Commission  he  defined  Civil 
Service  Reform  as  "designed  primarily  to  give 
the  average  American  citizen  a  fair  chance  in 
politics,"  and  in  conducting  an  arduous  cam 
paign  against  the  Spoils  System  was  equally 
ready  to  antagonize  influential  Republicans 
and  to  cooperate  with  influential  Democrats. 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

Thoughout  his  political  career  in  maintaining 
Civil  Service  Reform  he  fought  Senator  Quay 
and  Senator  Hanna  when  they  represented  the 
Spoils  System  and  cooperated  with  them  when 
Quay  maintained  the  rights  of  the  Indians  and 
Hanna  was  seeking  to  promote  social  justice. 
As  Police  Commissioner  in  New  York  City,  at 
the  time  of  strikes  he  protected  the  right  of  the 
working  people  to  employ  peaceable  picketing 
and  resolutely  stopped  every  attempt  of  vio 
lence  by  or  on  behalf  of  strikers;  in  dealing  with 
disorderly  houses,  he  subjected  men  found  in 
them  to  the  same  treatment  to  which  women 
were  subjected  and  regarded  the  men  as  truly 
fallen  as  the  women;  asked  to  prevent  an  anti- 
Jewish  agitator  from  speaking,  he  refused  to  in 
terfere  with  freedom  of  speech,  but  appointed 
Jewish  policemen  to  furnish  the  speaker  pro 
tection  and  so  demonstrated  the  loyalty  of  the 
Jews  as  a  class  to  the  cause  of  law  and  order; 
and  in  his  appointments  and  promotions  in  the 
police  force  neither  politics  nor  personal  favourit 
ism  had  any  place.  "I  never,"  he  says,  "coddled 
these  men.  I  punish  them  severely  whenever 
I  think  their  conduct  requires  it.  All  I  did 
was  to  try  to  be  just;  to  reward  them  when  they 
did  well;  in  short,  to  act  squarely  by  them." 
When  he  was  elected  Governor  of  the  State  of 
New  York  after  the  Spanish- American  War,  his 

324 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

spirit  in  dealing  with  the  young  men  of  the 
Assembly  I  have  already  indicated;  his  reform 
of  a  corrupt  canal  administration;  his  successful 
extension  of  civil  service  reform;  his  pushing 
through,  in  spite  of  great  obstacles,  a  just  tax 
on  corporations  that  had  theretofore  been  ex 
empt,  his  too-little-known  influence  in  prevent 
ing  the  scheme  for  handing  over  the  proposed 
subways  in  the  city  of  New  York  to  private 
ownership,  and  the  part  he  took  in  securing  their 
permanent  ownership  by  the  city  united  against 
him  influential  leaders  in  his  party  and  powerful 
financial  interests,  irrespective  of  party.  Unable 
to  defeat  his  recommendation  they  hoped  to 
shelve  him  by  making  him  Vice-President,  a 
position,  usually  of  more  honour  than  influence. 
Made  President  by  the  death  of  Mr.  McKinley, 
in  his  first  annual  message  he  indicated  clearly 
his  position  respecting  the  still-perplexing  prob 
lem  of  monopoly.  He  condemned  the  theories 
of  the  anarchists,  declaring  that  anarchistic 
speeches,  writings,  and  meetings  are  essentially 
seditious  and  treasonable,  but  he  denied  that  as 
the  rich  have  grown  richer  the  poor  have  grown 
poorer;  affirmed  that,  "on  the  contrary,  never  be 
fore  has  the  average  man,  the  wage  worker,  the 
farmer,  the  small  trader  been  so  well  off  as  in  this 
country";  and  he  recognized  that  it  was  neces 
sary  to  use  extreme  care  in  dealing  with  corporate 

325 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

wealth.  But  he  also  affirmed  that  there  were 
real  and  grave  evils  which  must  be  studied  and 
overcome;  that  combination  and  concentra 
tion  "should  be  not  prohibited,  but  supervised 
and  within  reasonable  limits  controlled";  and 
that  this  regulation  and  supervision  of  corpora 
tions  should  not  be  left  to  the  individual  state, 
but  should  be  exercised  by  the  Federal  power 
over  all  corporations  doing  interstate  business. 
This  principle  he  carried  out  consistently,  and 
with  both  vigour  and  patience  throughout  his 
two  Presidential  terms.  The  course  which,  as 
I  have  above  indicated,  he  thought  ought  to  have 
been  pursued  at  the  time  the  Adamson  Bill  was 
forced  through  Congress  by  a  threatened  strike, 
he  had  himself  pursued  when  the  nation  was 
threatened  with  a  coal  famine  by  an  industrial 
war  between  the  coal  owners  and  the  coal  workers. 
He  obtained  the  consent  of  a  commission  of 
eminent  citizens,  with  Grover  Cleveland  at  its 
head,  to  serve  in  deciding  the  merits  of  the  con 
troversy  and  in  recommending  an  adjustment 
fair  to  both  parties  and  to  the  public,  and  then 
arranged  for  the  United  States  army  to  run 
the  mines  if  there  proved  to  be  any  delay  in 
accepting  the  arbitration.  "In  such  cases,"  he 
wrote  in  a  letter  to  me,  "the  three  parties  in 
interest  are:  1 — the  property  owners;  2 — the 
labourers;  3 — the  public;  and  the  President 

326 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

should  act  primarily  as  the  representative  of  the 
public,  that  is,  the  people  of  this  Nation  as  a 
whole;  for  this  is  a  National  question."  For  his 
interference  in  this  case,  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  been 
sometimes  sharply  criticized.  A  sufficient  an 
swer  to  that  criticism  for  the  purposes  of  this 
paper  is  furnished  by  the  general  approval  of  the 
country  as  expressed  by  ex-President  Cleveland 
in  the  sentences:  "I  do  not  think  that  any 
president  ever  acted  more  wisely,  courageously, 
or  promptly  in  a  national  crisis.  Mr.  Roose 
velt  deserves  unstinted  praise  for  what  he 
did." 

I  shall  not  in  this  paper  reopen  the  questions 
hotly  debated  during  the  Progressive  campaign 
of  1912,  but  I  may  without  impropriety  give  to 
my  readers  my  conviction  respecting  the  motives 
which  inspired  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  his  course  at  that 
time.  I  saw  letters  that  he  wrote;  I  consulted 
with  him  on  actions  that  he  took;  I  was  present 
in  conferences  that  he  held  with  leading  public 
men  from  various  parts  of  the  country.  I  say 
with  confident  assurance  that  he  did  not  desire  to 
enter  again  into  political  campaigning.  He  had 
no  political  ambition  to  assume  the  duties  of 
the  Presidency.  He  wished  to  avoid  these 
duties  if  he  could  do  so  with  honour.  His 
answer  in  letters  and  conferences,  reiterated  in 
literally  hundreds  of  cases,  was  always  the  same: 

327 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

"I  do  not  wish  to  be  a  candidate."  So  long  as 
there  was  any  prospect  that  Mr.  La  Toilette 
could  and  would  be  accepted  as  a  leader  of  the 
Progressive  party  movement  Mr.  Roosevelt 
abstained  from  political  activity.  Not  until 
Mr.  La  Follette  had  broken  down  nervously  in 
his  Philadelphia  speech,  and  his  own  friends  had 
counselled  him  to  withdraw,  and  it  had  become 
apparent  to  those  who  were  interested  in  the  Pro 
gressive  principles  and  the  Progressive  move 
ment  that  the  movement  was  in  danger  of  utter 
failure  for  want  of  a  national  leader,  did  Mr. 
Roosevelt  reluctantly  consent  to  accept  the 
leadership  which  was  urged  upon  him.  His  in 
most  feeling  on  the  subject  was  revealed  with 
characteristic  frankness  to  his  associates.  To 
one  of  them  he  wrote  in  December,  1911,  "I 
most  emphatically  do  not  wish  the  nomination. 
Personally,  I  should  regard  it  as  a  calamity  to  be 
nominated.  In  the  first  place,  I  might  very 
possibly  be  beaten,  and  in  the  next  place,  even 
if  elected,  I  should  be  confronted  with  almost 
impossible  conditions  out  of  which  to  make  good 
results." 

I  recall,  as  I  write  these  lines,  the  day  when 
that  decision  was  apparently  finally  reached.  It 
was  about  the  time  when  seven  governors  pre 
sented  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  their  united  request 
that  he  become  a  candidate.  He  submitted  to 

328 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

us,  his  associates  on  the  Outlook  staff,  the  ques 
tion,  Could  he  with  honour  decline?  Each 
member  of  the  staff  was  asked  by  him  to  give 
his  opinion  on  that  question.  One  of  our  num 
ber  recalled  the  pledge  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  had 
given  to  the  American  people  when  he  landed  at 
the  Battery,  New  York  City,  on  his  return  from 
Europe:  "I  am  ready  and  eager  to  do  my  part, 
so  far  as  I  am  able,  in  helping  solve  problems 
which  must  be  solved  if  we  of  this,  the  greatest 
democratic  Republic  upon  which  the  sun  has 
ever  shone,  are  to  see  its  destinies  rise  to  the 
limit  of  our  hopes  and  its  opportunities."  We 
all  believed  in  the  Progressive  principles,  and 
we  all  thought  that  the  campaign  for  them  at 
that  time  would  be  a  forlorn  hope.  We  all  be 
lieved  that  could  Mr.  Roosevelt  remain  in  re 
tirement  for  four  years,  in  1916  Progressive 
principles  would  be  certain  of  victory,  but  we  all 
agreed  that  he  had  no  option  but  to  accede  to 
the  apparently  unanimous  request  of  those  who 
had  faith  in  Progressive  principles  and  accept 
their  proffered  leadership,  whatever  the  im 
mediate  political  results  might  be.  He  himself 
summed  up  in  a  graphic  figure  our  unanimous 
conditions:  "I  am  not  going  to  get  those  good 
fellows  out  on  the  end  of  a  limb  and  then  saw 
off  the  limb."  He  entered  on  the  primary  cam 
paign  in  February,  1912,  at  the  call  of  honour, 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

when  ambition,  ease,  and  personal  inclinations 
all  combined  in  urging  him  to  resist  that  call. 

When  at  the  close  of  his  Presidency  Mr. 
Roosevelt  became  a  member  of  the  editorial 
staff  of  the  Outlook,  it  was  clearly  understood 
that  he  was  at  perfect  liberty  to  utter  through 
our  columns  whatever  opinions  he  wished  to 
communicate  to  the  public  and  that  we  should 
be  at  perfect  liberty  to  express  our  dissent.  It 
was  a  rather  fortunate  circumstance  that  a  few 
weeks  before  this  arrangement  could  properly  be 
announced  to  the  public  he  wrote  an  article  on 
Tolstoy  and  I  accompanied  it  with  another, 
the  two  articles  differing  in  some  important  re 
spects  in  their  estimate  of  that  enigmatical  char 
acter.  In  the  five  years  during  which  Mr.  Roose 
velt  was  thus  associated  with  us  nothing  ever 
occurred  to  impair  our  mutual  friendship ;  by  his 
courtesy  and  consideration  he  won  from  the  first 
the  devotion  of  all  members  of  what  we  are  accus 
tomed  to  call  "the  Outlook  Family";  and  when, 
after  five  years  of  cooperation  in  dealing  with  ex 
citing  political  topics,  he  withdrew  from  the  Out 
look,  it  was  with  his  regret  and  with  ours.  He 
continued  to  the  end  of  his  life  to  be  an  occasional 
contributor  to  our  columns  and  to  possess  the 
confidence,  esteem,  and  affection  of  all  the  men 
and  women  on  the  Outlook,  from  the  errand  boy 
to  the  editor-in-chief. 

330 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

This  sketch  is  neither  a  life  of  Theodore  Roose 
velt  nor  an  impartial  analysis  of  his  character.  I 
knew  him  well ;  I  esteemed  him  as  a  genius ;  I  hon 
oured  him  as  a  patriot;  I  loved  him  as  a  friend; 
and  I  have  never  regarded  the  vivisection  of  my 
friends  as  either  a  public  duty  or  an  agreeable 
recreation.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  faults  were  on  the 
surface;  his  virtues  were  in  his  fibre.  We  are 
a  young  nation.  The  American  people,  like 
college  boys,  discern  the  virtues  beneath  the 
faults  and  give  to  him  their  honour,  their  esteem, 
their  affection.  He  was  a  courageous  fighter,  a 
loyal  friend,  and  always  a  hater  of  injustice  and 
a  lover  of  righteousness.  He  was  a  shrewd  poli 
tician  and  a  great  statesman;  a  leader  of  the 
people  but  too  good  a  democrat  to  be  their  ruler. 
Future  history  will  honour  him  as  one  of  the 
greatest  citizens  of  a  nation  which  has  been 
prolific  in  great  citizens.  Of  all  the  services  he 
has  rendered  to  his  age,  I  count  this  the  greatest: 
that  by  his  words,  his  deeds,  and  his  character 
he  was  always  a  preacher  of  righteousness. 


331 


JACOB  ABBOTT,  FRIEND  OF  CHILDREN 

MY  FIRST  recollection  of  my  father  is 
an  incident  which,  though  slight,  is 
very  significant  of  his  spirit  in  dealing 
with  children.  Recovery  from  scarlet  fever 
had  left  me  subject  to  gatherings  in  the  ear 
which  produced  very  severe  ear-aches.  Surgical 
operations  for  such  trouble  were  then  unknown. 
The  only  relief  obtainable  was  soaking  cotton 
wool  in  laudanum  and  putting  it  in  the  ear  to 
deaden  the  pain.  My  father  was  living  in  the 
part  of  New  York  City  now  called  Greenwich 
Village,  and,  with  his  brothers,  was  carrying  on 
a  school  for  girls  in  the  city.  It  was  quite 
essential  for  his  work  that  he  should  get  his 
night's  rest.  He  made  a  bargain  with  me:  he 
would  tell  me  a  story  for  fifteen  minutes,  then 
I  was  to  let  him  sleep  for  fifteen  minutes,  and 
so  we  would  go  through  the  night  together. 
Whether  this  was  done  for  only  one  night  or  many 
nights,  I  do  not  now  recall.  By  this  bargain  he 
and  I  became  partners;  he  carried  my  burden,  but 
I  also  did  something  to  carry  his  burden.  He 
would  help  me  bear  my  pain,  but  he  trusted  me 
to  help  him  get  ready  for  his  morrow's  work. 

332 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

This  confidence  in  children  and  cooperation 
with  children  was  one  of  his  distinguishing  char 
acteristics.  I  have  known  men  as  fond  of 
children  as  my  father,  but  I  have  never  known  a 
man  who  had  for  them  such  respect.  In  a  true 
sense,  it  might  be  said  that  he  treated  children 
as  his  equals,  not  through  any  device  or  from 
any  scheme,  but  spontaneously  and  naturally. 
He  trusted  the  judgment  of  children,  took  coun 
sel  with  them,  and  in  all  the  matters  which 
concerned  them  and  their  world  was  greatly 
influenced  by  their  judgments.  He  threw  re 
sponsibility  upon  them,  great  responsibility, 
and  they  realized  it. 

This  respect  which  he  showed  to  children  in 
spired  them  with  respect  for  themselves  and  for 
one  another.  It  gave  dignity  to  the  children  who 
came  under  his  influence.  That  influence  was  a 
masterful  one.  I  should  misrepresent  him  if  I 
gave  the  impression  that  he  exercised  no  author 
ity.  On  the  contrary,  his  authority  was  supreme 
and  final.  He  gave  few  commands,  but  he  re 
quired  prompt,  implicit,  and  unquestioning  obe 
dience  to  those  which  he  did  give.  I  have  known 
children  to  disobey  him,  but  I  never  knew  one 
to  rebel  against  him.  I  do  not  know  what  would 
have  happened  in  case  of  a  rebellion.  I  think 
no  child  ever  thought  of  it  as  possible.  I  never 
knew  him  to  strike  a  blow.  I  do  not  recall  that 

333 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

he  ever  sent  a  child  to  his  room,  or  supperless  to 
bed,  or  set  him  to  write  in  his  copy  book,  or 
to  learn  tasks,  or  resorted  to  any  other  of  the 
similar  expedients,  necessary  perhaps  in  school, 
and  frequent  in  most  families.  In  general,  he 
simply  administered  natural  penalties.  If  a 
child  lied  or  broke  his  promises,  he  was  dis 
trusted.  If  he  was  careless  or  negligent,  the 
things  that  were  given  to  other  children  to  play 
with  were  withheld  from  him.  If  he  quarrelled, 
he  was  taken  away  from  his  playmates,  but 
made  as  happy  as  he  could  be  made  in  solitude. 
This  spirit  of  respect  which  my  father  had  for 
children  interprets  his  literary  method.  He 
never  condescended  to  children,  never  talked 
down  to  them  or  wrote  down  to  them.  He  be 
lieved  they  could  understand  large  truths  if  they 
were  simply  and  clearly  stated.  So  in  "Science 
for  the  Young"  he  dealt  with  some  of  the  most 
interesting  scientific  phenomena;  in  his  "Red 
Histories"  he  used  biography  to  make  clear  the 
great  historical  epochs;  in  his  Young  Christian 
Series  he  interpreted  some  of  the  profoundest 
phases  of  spiritual  experience.  This  spirit  of 
confidence  determined  his  style.  He  never 
sought  for  short  and  easy  words,  but  selected 
what  he  thought  the  best  word  to  express  his 
meaning.  The  child,  he  said,  will  get  the  mean 
ing  of  the  word  from  the  context,  or  if  he  does 

334 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

not,  he  will  ask  his  mother  what  the  word  means, 
and  so  he  will  be  learning  language.  He  did 
not  write  books  about  children  for  grown  people 
to  read.  He  wrote  books  for  children  because 
he  shared  their  life  with  them.  Perhaps  it  is  a 
son's  prejudice,  but  his  books  still  seem  to  me 
to  be  among  the  best  of  true  children's  books. 
I  have  been  often  asked  which  one  of  his  four 
sons  was  Rollo.  The  answer  is:  none  of  them. 
So  far  as  I  know,  my  father  never  painted  a 
portrait,  never  took  a  single  child  out  of  real 
life  and  set  him  in  a  story;  never  made  a  charac 
ter  to  represent  a  type;  never  undertook  to  work 
out  through  fiction  the  development  of  a  charac 
ter  first  philosophically  conceived.  He  wrote 
his  stories  as  he  might  have  told  them.  If 
shorthand  had  been  in  vogue  in  his  time,  and 
one  could  have  taken  down  any  story  of  my 
father's  as  he  might  have  told  it  to  a  group  of 
children  gathered  about  his  chair,  it  would  have 
been  essentially  the  story  as  it  is  published  from 
his  pen.  He  did  not  form  a  plot  beforehand. 
Each  incident  led  on  to  the  next  incident;  it 
might  almost  be  said  that  each  paragraph  led 
on  to  the  next  paragraph;  and  when  the  al 
lotted  number  of  pages  was  finished,  the  story 
came  to  its  end,  much  as  the  story-telling  would 
come  to  an  end  when  the  clock  struck  nine  and 
it  was  time  for  the  children  to  go  to  bed.  This 

335 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

method  accounts  for  the  artlessness  of  his  narra 
tives.  They  are  natural  portrayals  of  child  life 
to  children.  The  only  approximation  to  por 
trait  painting  is  in  "Jonas,"  "Beechnut,"  and 
"Rainbow."  These  characters  in  his  stories 
used  the  devices,  employed  the  methods,  mani 
fested  the  spirit  which  were  characteristic  of 
his  dealing  with  children.  To  this  extent  and 
to  this  only  can  they  be  called  portraits,  for  in 
every  other  respect  they  are  unlike  one  another 
and  quite  unlike  him. 

Let  me  go  back  a  little  and  tell  how  he  came  to 
enter  upon  his  life  work — the  writing  of  chil 
dren's  books. 

My  grandfather  gave  his  five  boys  a  college 
and  a  theological  education  and  then  left  them 
to  employ  that  education  as  they  thought  best. 
One  of  them  continued  a  preacher  throughout 
his  life,  combining  authorship  with  his  pastoral 
duties.  The  others  became  teachers.  My 
father  accepted  a  tutorship  at  Amherst  College 
almost  immediately  after  his  graduation  from 
Andover  Theological  Seminary  and  at  the  age 
of  twenty-two  was  made  full  professor  of  mathe 
matics  and  natural  philosophy.  In  a  journal 
that  he  kept  during  his  college  days  I  find 
indications  of  a  growing  ambition  toward  author 
ship.  Among  these  is  a  plan  for  an  undenomi 
national  religious  journal  of  a  high  character, 

336 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

though  even  then  his  habitual  financial  caution 
shows  itself  in  the  question  whether  such  a 
journal  could  be  made  self-supporting. 

Four  years  later  he  accepted  an  invitation  to 
go  to  Boston  and  there  organize  and  carry  on  a 
school  for  the  broader  and  better  education  of 
girls,  one  among  the  first  in  that  movement  for 
woman's  education  out  of  which  have  grown  the 
girls'  high  schools  and  colleges.  He  had  al 
ready  in  Amherst  College  tried  successfully, 
though  in  a  small  way,  the  experiment  of  self- 
government;  had  organized  out  of  the  students 
a  "Fraternity  of  the  Chapel  Entry";  put  into 
their  hands  the  task  of  seeing  that  this  entry  was 
kept  in  order  and  provided  with  light  and  heat; 
and  had  so  far  enrolled  himself  as  a  member  of 
the  Fraternity  as  to  be  liable  with  the  others 
to  assessment  for  taxes  and  subject  to  the  rules 
which  the  Fraternity  might  adopt.  This  princi 
ple  of  self-government  he  carried  out  to  a  much 
greater  extent  in  the  Mt.  Vernon  school,  in 
Boston,  where  he  left  the  girls  to  study  by  them 
selves  in  a  common  schoolroom  without  teacher 
or  monitor,  and  appointed  one  of  the  girls  to 
manage  a  simple  but  ingenious  mechanism 
which  he  devised  for  letting  the  students  know 
when  the  time  for  recess  had  come. 

Into  this  school  he  carried  his  ministerial 
ambitions  and  gave  on  Saturday  mornings  a  series 

337 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

of  religious  lectures  which  led  afterward  to  the 
publication  of  the  Young  Christian  Series.* 

To  prepare  these  lectures,  or  to  write  them 
in  book  form  for  the  press,  he  rose  very  early  in 
the  morning,  and  wrote  for  a  couple  of  hours  or 
so  before  his  breakfast.  His  ambition  proved 
too  great  for  his  physique.  He  resigned  and 
moved  his  family  to  his  father's  home  in  Far- 
mington,  Maine.  He  purchased  a  wild  place  just 
across  the  road  from  his  father's  house,  half 
sandhill,  half  marsh,  with  just  room  enough  be 
tween  the  sandhill  and  the  road  for  a  little 
cottage.  Here  he  wrote  the  Hollo  Books 
in  the  mornings,  and  worked  on  hill  and 
marsh  in  the  afternoons.  He  gradually  con 
verted  the  marsh  into  a  pond;  he  opened  the 
sand-bank  to  the  public,  and  the  public  carted 
so  much  away  that,  in  time,  the  grounds  about 
the  house  became  adequate  if  not  ample;  one 
hill  grew  into  a  grassy  slope,  the  other,  turfed 
and  covered  with  trees,  gave  the  place  its  name 
of  "Little  Blue,"  derived  from  a  mountain 
twenty  miles  away  known  as  "Old  Blue."  He 
redeemed  wildness  in  boy  and  land  by  the 
same  process,  working  with  Nature,  and  wait 
ing  long  and  patiently  for  Nature  to  do  her 
work.  In  later  life  he  found  equal  pleasure  in 


*"The  Young  Christian,"  "The  Corner  Stone,"  "The  Way  to  Do  Good,"  "Hoaryhead 
and  McDonner." 

338 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

labouring  upon  the  grounds  of  the  two  of  his 
sons  who  had  country  homes;  and  the  recreation 
of  his  declining  years  was  simple  but  artistic 
landscape  gardening  at  Fewacres,  the  old  home 
stead.  It  was  not  enough  for  him  to  direct; 
he  always  wished  to  labour  with  his  own  hands. 
How  often  have  I  heard  him  say,  when  compelled 
by  fatigue  to  relinquish  the  spade  or  pick,  "I 
wish  I  could  hire  someone  else's  muscles  and 
use  them  myself." 

The  account  which  Samuel  Butler  has  given  of 
his  own  childhood  in  that  tragic  story  "The  Way 
of  All  Flesh"  is  perhaps  an  exaggerated  account 
of  an  exceptionally  unhappy  childhood.  Yet  it 
is  true  that  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  more  or  less  deliberate  purpose  of 
religious  parents  in  Puritan  households  was  the 
government  of  the  children  by  fear  of  a  tyranny 
which  could  not  be  resisted  and  the  suppression 
by  that  government  of  the  natural  instincts  of 
childhood.  This  purpose  found  expression  in 
two  popular  mottoes:  "Children  should  be 
seen  and  not  heard"  and  "Spare  the  rod  and 
spoil  the  child."  Each  of  these  mottoes  was 
the  outward  expression  of  a  deep-rooted  Puritan 
philosophy,  which  might  be  expressed  thus: 
From  Adam  all  his  descendants  have  inherited  a 
depraved  nature.  That  nature  must  be  eradi 
cated;  the  child's  will  broken;  his  evil  tendencies 

339 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

subdued.  Only  thus  can  he  become  a  child  of 
God.  Jesus  Christ  had  said:  "Except  ye  become 
as  little  children,  ye  cannot  enter  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven."  Puritan  theology  had  substituted: 
"Except  ye  become  as  grown-ups,  ye  cannot 
enter  the  Kingdom."  The  stories  of  childish 
saints  is  pathetic;  the  stories  of  the  painstaking 
endeavour  by  pious  parents  to  make  childish 
saints  is  even  more  pathetic. 

Some  years  ago  I  went  on  a  boating  expedition 
in  Penobscot  Bay.  We  went  ashore  to  spend 
the  night  in  a  farmhouse  which  was  hospitably 
open  to  "paying  guests."  On  the  parlour  table 
I  found  a  Sunday-school  Story  Book,  dated 
about  1830.  A  new  baby  was  to  be  christened. 
Her  little  sister,  seven  or  eight  years  old,  came 
aglow  with  eager  expectation  to  the  mother. 
"How  are  you  going  to  dress  the  baby?"  she 
asked.  "My  child,"  said  the  pained  but  patient 
mother,  "bring  me  the  Prayer  Book."  It  was 
brought.  "Now  read  what  the  God-father  says 
at  the  time  of  the  Christening."  The  child  read 
as  follows: 

"Dost  thou,  in  the  name  of  this  child,  renounce  the  devil 
and  all  his  works,  the  vain  pomp  and  glory  of  the  world, 
with  all  covetous  desires  of  the  same,  and  the  sinful  desires  of 
the  flesh,  so  that  thou  wilt  not  follow,  nor  be  led  by  them? 

"Answer:  I  renounce  them  all;  and,  by  God's  help,  will 
endeavour  not  to  follow,  nor  be  led  by  them." 

340 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

"Do  you  see,  my  child,"  said  the  mother, 
"how  wicked  it  is  to  be  thinking  of  the  baby's 
dress  at  such  a  time?  Go  to  your  room  and  ask 
your  Heavenly  Father  to  forgive  your  worldly 
and  sinful  spirit." 

My  father  abhorred  controversies  of  every  de 
scription  and  never  attacked  the  current  theology 
of  his  time,  but  all  his  children's  books  were  based 
upon  a  psychological  conception  radically  differ 
ent.  Toward  the  close  of  his  life  he  published 
a  volume  entitled,  "Gentle  Measures  in  the 
Training  of  the  Young."  In  this  volume  he 
interprets  in  a  very  simple  form  and  with  many 
concrete  illustrations  the  philosophical  principles 
on  which  all  his  children's  books  were  based. 
Whether  in  1834,  when  the  first  of  the  Rollo 
Books  was  published,  he  had  defined  to  him 
self  those  principles  and  wrote  his  books  to 
illustrate  and  enforce  them,  or  whether  he 
wrote  his  books  and  carried  on  his  teaching 
for  nearly  forty  years  and  then  from  his  stud 
ies  of  children  and  his  experiments  with  them 
evolved  these  principles,  I  do  not  know.  I 
think  the  latter  is  more  probably  the  truth.  If 
so,  if  these  principles  were  deduced  from  a  third 
of  a  century's  study  and  experiment,  they  are 
for  that  reason  all  the  more  valuable  to  the 
fathers  and  mothers  of  the  present  time. 

He  neither  assumed  that  the  child  is  a  little 
341 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPOB  ARIES 

cherub  or  a  little  devil.  He  assumed  that  "in 
respect  of  moral  conduct  as  well  as  of  mental 
attainments  children  know  nothing  when  they 
come  into  the  world,  but  have  everything  to 
learn  either  from  the  instructions  or  from  the 
examples  of  those  around  them."  Therefore, 
the  child  must  be  trained  to  perceive  the  differ 
ence  between  truth  and  falsehood,  generosity 
and  selfishness,  honesty  and  dishonesty  exactly 
as  he  must  be  trained  to  walk  or  to  talk.  "The 
first  time  that  a  child  attempts  to  walk  alone 
what  a  feeble,  staggering,  and  awkward  exhibi 
tion  it  makes.  And  yet  its  mother  shows  by 
the  excitement  of  her  countenance  and  the  de 
light  expressed  by  her  exclamations  how  pleased 
she  is  with  the  performance."  He  who  really 
comprehends  this  philosophy  and  accepts  it 
will  realize  that  to  train  a  child  to  perceive  the 
sacredness  of  truth  or  recognize  the  rights  of 
property  requires  infinite  patience,  and  that  the 
first  failures  of  the  child's  conscience  are  no  more 
deserving  of  punishment  in  the  strict  sense  of  that 
term  than  failures  in  his  first  experiments  in  walk 
ing.  "  The  mother  is  thus  to  understand  that  the 
principle  of  obedience  is  not  to  be  expected  to 
come  by  nature  into  the  heart  of  her  child,  but 
to  be  implanted  by  education.  She  must  under 
stand  this  so  fully  as  to  feel  that  if  she  finds  that 
her  children  are  disobedient  to  her  commands — 

342 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

leaving  out  of  view  cases  of  peculiar  and  extraor 
dinary  temptation — it  is  her  fault,  not  theirs." 

Though  training  in  this  spirit  rarely,  if  ever, 
calls  for  punishment,  it  calls  continually  for 
discipline.  The  difference  between  the  two  is 
not  in  the  act  of  the  judge,  but  in  his  purpose 
and  his  spirit.  I  must  here  condense  into  a  very 
few  words  a  distinction  to  which  my  father  gives 
a  chapter  of  his  book. 

Punishment  may  be  regarded  as  a  penalty  de 
manded  by  the  eternal  principles  of  justice  and 
the  natural  consequence  of  the  sin  of  the  trans 
gressor,  or  it  may  be  considered  as  a  remedial 
measure  adopted  solely  to  deter  from  similar 
errors  or  sins  in  time  to  come.  "According  to 
the  first  view,  punishment  is  a  penalty  which 
justice  demands  as  a  satisfaction  for  the  past. 
According  to  the  other  it  is  a  remedy  which 
goodness  devises  for  the  benefit  of  the  future." 
Without  discussing  the  question  which  of  these 
principles  actuates  God  in  his  dealing  with  sin 
and  the  State  in  dealing  with  crime,  my  father 
contents  himself  with  the  declaration  that 
"the  punishment  of  a  child  by  a  parent,  or  of  a 
pupil  by  a  teacher,  ought  certainly,  one  would 
think,  to  exclude  the  element  of  vindictive  ret 
ribution  altogether,  and  to  be  employed  solely 
with  reference  to  the  salutary  influence  that 
may  be  expected  from  it  in  time  to  come." 

343 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

With  this  distinction  between  punishment  de 
manded  by  justice  and  punishment  devised  by 
benevolence  my  father  coupled  another — the 
difference  between  instinct  and  capacities.  ' '  The 
dog  has  an  instinct  impelling  him  to  attach  him 
self  to  and  follow  his  master;  but  he  has  no  in 
stinct  leading  him  to  draw  his  master's  cart. 
He  requires  no  teaching  for  the  one.  It  comes, 
of  course,  from  the  connate  impulses  of  his 
nature.  For  the  other  he  requires  a  skilful  and 
careful  training.  ...  So  with  the  child. 
If  he  does  not  seem  to  know  how  to  take  his  food, 
or  shows  no  disposition  to  run  to  his  mother  when 
he  is  hurt  or  when  he  is  frightened,  we  have  rea 
son  to  suspect  something  wrong,  or,  at  least, 
something  abnormal,  in  his  mental  or  physical 
constitution.  But  if  he  does  not  obey  his 
mother's  commands — no  matter  how  insubordi 
nate  or  unmanageable  he  may  be — the  fault 
does  not,  certainly,  indicate  anything  at  all 
wrong  in  him.  The  fault  is  in  his  training. 
In  witnessing  his  disobedience,  our  reflection 
should  be,  not  'What  a  bad  boy!'  but  'What 
an  unfaithful  or  incompetent  mother!" 

These  two  fundamental  distinctions  must  be 
borne  in  mind  by  any  reader  who  desires  to 
understand  the  principles  of  family  and  school 
government  which  my  father  inculcated  and 
illustrated  by  his  books. 

344 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

The  first  lesson  a  child  must  learn  is  obedience. 
He  comes  into  a  world  of  law.  He  neither 
knows  what  the  laws  are  nor  why  he  should  obey 
them.  To  the  father  and  the  mother  is  en 
trusted  the  duty  of  teaching  these  first  lessons 
of  life. 

There  are  inexorable  laws  of  nature.  He  who 
does  not  know  and  obey  these  laws  may  easily 
kill  himself  by  a  single  act  of  innocent  because 
ignorant  disobedience,  and  he  will  be  certain  to 
injure  himself  by  repeated  acts  of  disobedience. 
There  are  unwritten  laws  of  society  which  will 
confront  him  in  the  family,  in  the  playground, 
and  later  in  social  and  commercial  circles.  If 
he  ignores  and  disregards  them  he  will  soon  find 
himself  a  social  outcast.  His  companions  will 
assume  that  he  knows  them  and  disregards  them 
deliberately  because  either  of  malice  or  stupidity. 
There  are  laws  of  the  State.  If  he  habitually 
ignores  or  disregards  these  laws,  he  may  speedily 
find  himself  in  prison.  Courts  will  not  listen  to 
his  plea  that  he  was  ignorant  of  them.  Ignor 
ance  is  an  excuse  which  the  community  does  not 
accept.  Nature  is  pitiless.  Society,  if  not 
absolutely  pitiless,  is  wholly  unsympathetic. 
It  is,  therefore,  the  first  and  most  fundamental 
duty  of  the  parent  to  teach  the  child  that  he  is 
not  independent;  that  he  cannot  live  his  own 
life  regardless  of  other  lives;  that  he  must  learn 

345 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

to  yield  his  will  to  the  wills  of  others  and  to  the 
One  Supreme  Will,  if  he  would  live  a  happy  and 
a  useful  life. 

But  there  are  comparatively  few  families  in 
which  this  necessity  is  understood  and  in  which 
the  children  are  taught  to  obey  promptly  and 
without  question.  In  some  obedience  is  not 
taught  at  all;  in  some  it  is  taught  only  irregularly 
and  fitfully;  in  some  disobedience  is  inculcated 
by  the  constant  issuing  of  commands  which  there 
is  no  purpose  to  enforce  and  the  threatening  of 
penalties  which  there  is  no  purpose  to  inflict. 
In  one  of  my  father's  stories  he  puts  the  secret 
of  good  government  in  family  or  school  in  four 
sentences,  thus: 

When  you  consent,  consent  cordially. 
When  you  refuse,  refuse  finally. 
When  you  punish,  punish  good-naturedly. 
Commend  often;  never  scold. 

My  father's  stories  for  children  are  largely 
employed  in  illustrating  and  enforcing  these 
four  principles.  I  could  wish  that  everyone  who 
has  to  do  with  the  government  of  children 
would  commit  them  to  memory  and  would, 
from  time  to  time,  by  these  rules  test  his  ad 
ministration  of  that  government.  But  he  will 
find  impossible  the  last  two  rules  unless  he  be 
lieves,  with  my  father,  in  the  truth  that  the 

346 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

child  is  not  morally  to  blame  for  the  failure  to 
understand  moral  principles  which  have  never 
been  inculcated. 

Josie  comes  to  visit  Phonny  and  Malleville. 
Phonny  comes  up  into  Beechnut's  room,  to 
which  he  is  confined  by  a  slight  illness,  and 
tells  Beechnut  that  Josie  is  coming  to  make  him 
a  visit. 

"Ah!"  said  Beechnut,  "then  I  must  get  ac 
quainted  with  her.  And  the  first  thing  is  to 
find  out  whether  I  have  got  to  teach  her  to  obey 
me,  or  whether  she  has  learned  to  obey  already." 

"How  do  you  think  it  is?"  asked  Phonny. 

"I  think  she  has  not  learned  to  obey,"  said 
Beechnut. 

"Why  not?"  asked  Phonny. 

"Because  she  is  a  city  girl,"  said  Beechnut, 
"and  city  girls  are  very  seldom  taught  to  obey." 

"Why  not?"  asked  Phonny  again. 

"Oh,  because,"  said  Beechnut,  "they  are  put 
away  from  their  mother's  care  and  into  the  care 
of  nursery-maids  so  much.  The  nursery-maids 
coax  them,  and  bribe  them,  and  deceive  them 
—and  do  everything  to  them  except  teach  them 
simply  to  obey." 

"And  how  are  you  going  to  find  out,"  asked 
Phonny,  "whether  Josie  has  been  taught  to 
obey?" 

"You  will  see,"  said  Beechnut. 
347 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORAKIES 

He  finds  out  in  a  very  simple  manner.  Josie 
starts  to  open  the  drawers  of  the  little  bureau, 
pays  no  attention  to  Beechnut's  telling  her  not 
to  do  so  and  finds  the  drawers  empty. 

"Why,  Beechnut,"  said  Josie,  "what  did  you 
say  I  must  not  open  these  drawers  for?  There 
is  nothing  in  them." 

"There  is  a  knob,"  suggested  Malleville. 

"Yes;  nothing  but  the  knob,"  said  Josie. 
"What  was  the  reason?"  repeated  Josie. 

"I  had  a  reason,"  replied  Beechnut. 

"What  was  it?"  persisted  Josie. 

"I  know  what  it  was,"  said  Phonny. 

"What?"  asked  Josie. 

Phonny  hesitated  a  moment,  not  being  quite 
sure  whether  it  would  be  polite  for  him  to  tell 
what  he  thought.  At  length  he  said,  somewhat 
timidly : 

"To  see  whether  you  would  obey  him  or  not." 

"Was  that  the  reason?"  asked  Josie. 

"Yes,"  said  Beechnut. 

"Truly!"  said  Josie. 

"Yes,"   said  Beechnut,   "really  and  truly." 

Josephine  looked  a  little  ashamed  and  con 
fused  when  she  heard  this,  but  presently  re 
covering  herself  a  little  she  asked  Beechnut  what 
made  him  wish  to  know  particularly  whether 
she  would  obey  him. 

"Because,"  said  Beechnut,  "I  have  got  a 
348 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

number  of  pictures,  and  picture-books,  and 
curiosities  of  various  kinds  up  in  my  room, 
which  perhaps  it  would  amuse  you  to  see.  I 
let  children  go  up  and  see  them  sometimes  with 
out  me  if  I  am  only  sure  beforehand  that  they 
will  follow  precisely  the  directions  that  I  give 
them." 

Josie  has  thus  had  an  opportunity  to  learn 
her  first  lesson:  obedience  is  not  a  door  of  ad 
mission  into  a  prison,  it  is  a  door  of  exit  into 
liberty;  it  is  an  achievement  by  which  one's 
powers  and  privileges  are  increased.  It  is  cur 
ious  how  slow  even  philosophy  has  been  to  learn 
that  all  our  powers  over  nature  have  been  ac 
quired  by  intelligent  obedience  of  the  laws  of 
nature,  and  how,  similarly,  freedom  in  the  moral 
realm  is  acquired  only  by  voluntary  obedience  of 
the  moral  laws  written  in  the  constitution  of  man 
and  of  human  society.  "The  first  duty,"  says 
my  father,  "which  devolves  upon  the  mother 
in  the  training  of  her  child  is  the  establishment 
of  her  authority  over  him."  .  .  .  "The  first 
essential  condition  required  for  the  performance 
of  this  duty  is  the  fixing  of  the  conviction  in 
her  own  mind  that  it  is  a  duty." 

The  penalty  need  not  be  severe.  It  is  not 
by  the  severity  but  by  the  certainty  of  the  penalty 
that  a  habit  of  obedience  is  developed.  But 
whatever  the  penalty,  it  must  not  only  always  be 

349 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

just,  but  if  possible,  such  as  will  seem  just  to  the 
child.  For  the  object  of  the  ruler  should  be 
not  to  suppress,  but  to  develop  the  child.  Not 
infrequently  in  his  books  my  father  illustrates 
methods  by  which  the  cooperation  of  the  child 
can  be  secured  in  selecting  and  enforcing  disci 
pline.  The  penalty  need  not  necessarily  in 
flict  any  pain;  since  the  object  is  not  to  deter  by 
fear,  but  to  secure  the  aid  of  the  child  in  future 
endeavours  to  cure  his  fault,  not  infrequently  the 
penalty  is  even  amusing.  Phonny  in  harnessing 
the  horse  which  is  to  take  them  to  ride  has  failed 
to  follow  Beechnut's  directions.  Beechnut  at 
the  time  says  nothing,  but  after  they  have  started 
on  their  ride  he  suggests  that  Phonny  would  en 
joy  his  ride  more  if  he  were  first  to  be  punished 
for  his  disobedience.  He  suggests  that  Phonny 
mount  upon  the  horse  with  his  face  toward  his 
tail  and  ride  in  that  way  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 
Phonny  accepts  the  punishment.  Malleville 
and  Phonny  are  both  greatly  amused  during 
the  operation,  though  Phonny's  seat  proved 
to  be  very  uncomfortable. 

Though  discipline  is  not  always  terrifying  and 
sometimes  may  even  be  amusing,  it  must  always 
be  sufficient  at  the  time  to  secure  obedience. 
Severity  in  punishment  is  rarely  necessary,  but 
certainty  of  some  punishment  is  necessary.  And 
no  inconvenience  that  the  enforcement  of  law 

350 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

may  occasion  to  the  parent  or  teacher  furnishes 
any  excuse  for  allowing  disobedience  to  pass 
without  such  penalty  as  the  circumstances  may 
require. 

Jonas,  with  three  boys,  is  sailing  on  a  pond 
to  take  some  grain  to  the  mill.  Jonas  is  in  com 
mand  of  the  expedition.  Josey,  who  has  not  yet 
learned  to  obey,  disregards  Jonas's  directions,  and 
undertakes  to  go  forward  to  take  a  seat  which 
Jonas  has  assigned  to  another  boy.  As  he  starts 
to  go  forward  Jonas  with  his  paddle  brings 
the  boat  around.  The  boom  comes  thumping 
against  Josey's  head  and  shoulders  and  he  sinks 
down  into  the  bottom  of  the  boat  to  get  out  of 
the  way.  "What  was  that  for?"  asks  Josey. 
"I  am  going  to  put  you  ashore,"  replied  Jonas. 
"Me  ashore!"  repeated  Josey,  more  and  more 
surprised.  He  looked  forward,  and  saw  that 
the  boat  was  now  pointed  toward  the  shore,  at 
a  place  on  the  back  side  of  the  point  of  land 
which  they  had  just  passed. 

"Yes,"  said  Jonas,  "the  only  way,  when  we 
have  an  unmanageable  passenger  on  board, 
is  to  put  him  ashore  upon  the  nearest  land." 
.  •  .  .  "But  what  shall  I  do,"  said  he,  "if  you 
put  me  ashore?" 

"You  can  either  walk  home,  or  wait  there  till 
we  come  back  from  the  mill.  I'll  call  for  you 
when  I  come  back." 

351 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

The  other  two  boys  finally  interceded  for 
Josey,  and  Jonas,  with  some  hesitation,  accedes 
to  their  request.  But  Josey  had  learned  his 
lesson  that  "there  is  no  getting  along  out  at  sea 
without  obeying  the  commander." 

The  reader  will  observe  another  element  in 
this  incident:  Jonas  is  sustained  by  the  public 
opinion  of  the  community,  that  is,  by  the  other 
two  boys.  I  am  almost  inclined  to  the  opinion 
that  all  rebellion  against  government,  whether 
in  school,  factory,  or  nation,  is  partly  due  to  the 
fault  of  the  governor.  My  father  was  pro 
fessor  in  a  college  and  three  times  principal  in 
schools  of  considerable  size,  and  so  far  as  I  know, 
never  had  the  slightest  difficulty  in  enforcing  law 
and  maintaining  order.  The  reason,  I  think, 
was  that  he  was  always  supported  in  his  admin 
istration  by  the  public  opinion  of  the  students. 
Government  by  force  over  an  objecting  popu 
lation  is  always  a  despotism,  though  it  may  be  a 
benevolent  despotism.  My  father  was  con 
stitutionally  a  democrat,  that  is,  a  believer  in 
self-government,  and  it  was  because  he  believed 
in  self-government  that  he  laid  stress  upon  the 
duty  of  the  parent  and  the  teacher,  to  maintain 
his  authority  by  so  exercising  it  as  to  develop 
self-control  in  his  subjects. 

The  last  ten  years  of  his  life  my  father  spent 
quietly  with  his  two  sisters  in  what  had  been  his 

352 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

father's  home  in  Farmington,  Maine.  Here  his 
children  and  grandchildren  delighted  to  visit 
him;  here  he  organized  a  school  of  a  unique  char 
acter  composed  of  his  grandchildren  and  some 
of  their  playmates.  Admission  to  this  school 
was  by  invitation.  There  were  no  fees  and  no 
entrance  examinations,  and  attendance  was 
voluntary.  But  if  the  child  entered  the  school 
it  was  as  a  loyal  subject  of  an  educational  com 
monwealth.  He  could  not  be  sometimes  a  citizen 
and  sometimes  an  alien.  To  be  admitted  to  this 
school  was  accounted,  by  its  pupils,  a  high  privi 
lege.  One  of  these  pupils  has  written  for  me, 
at  my  request,  the  following  reminiscence  which 
will  give  to  the  readers  not  only  a  graphic  picture 
of  the  school,  but  an  interesting  illustration  of 
my  father's  method. 

"When  I  was  a  boy,  ten  or  eleven  years  of  age, 
I  spent  one  winter  and  a  part  of  two  summers, 
I  think,  with  my  grandfather,  Jacob  Abbott,  at 
his  home  in  Farmington,  Maine,  carrying  on  my 
studies  under  his  supervision. 

"No  elements  of  knowledge  seemed  to  him 
too  abstract  or  difficult  to  interest  a  child,  and 
his  methods  of  teaching  were  such  that  they  did 
interest  the  children.  I  studied  with  him,  for 
example,  some  of  the  simple  problems  of  Eucli 
dean  geometry,  and  for  many  years  kept  the 
blank  books  in  which  I  had  drawn  my  diagrams 

353 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

and  written  my  demonstrations.  His  method 
was  to  make  every  study  apply  in  some  way  or 
other  to  the  actual  life  round  about  us.  Two  in 
stances  illustrating  this  method  of  teaching  have 
remained  in  my  memory  for  fifty  years.  I  was 
studying  arithmetic  and  came  to  percentage. 
Now  my  experience  with  my  own  children  is 
that  percentage  as  ordinarily  taught  in  the 
schools  is  a  horrible  bore.  It  means  learning 
rules  by  rote  with  very  little  conception  of  the 
practical  use  and  operation  of  percentage.  My 
grandfather  solved  the  difficulty  in  this  way. 
When  we  came  to  percentage  he  entrusted  me 
with  the  duty  of  making  his  deposits,  cheques 
and  cash,  in  the  village  bank,  which  was  about 
half  a  mile  away.  I  had  to  write  out  the  deposit 
slips  and  take  the  pass  book  and  have  the  proper 
entry  made.  He  made  a  contract  with  me  that 
I  was  to  be  paid  for  this  work  on  a  percentage 
basis.  I  do  not  remember  what  the  rate  was, 
but  let  us  say  it  was  a  quarter  of  1  per  cent, 
or  a  tenth  of  1  per  cent.  If  the  latter  was  the 
rate  I  therefore  got  ten  cents  for  making  a  de 
posit  of  one  hundred  dollars,  or  a  fraction  of  ten 
cents  for  a  lesser  sum.  Both  the  purpose  and 
operation  of  percentage  were  thus  fixed  in  my 
mind  and  by  a  process  which  was  the  very  re 
verse  of  boresome. 

"In  a  garden  adjoining  the  house  there  was  a 
354 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

martin  box,  that  is  to  say  a  bird-house  rather 
elaborately  built  on  the  top  of  a  tall  painted 
pole,  to  house  the  martins,  a  bird  of  the  swallow 
family  which  frequents  parts  of  New  England 
and  is  welcomed  by  the  householders  both  be 
cause  it  is  picturesque  in  its  swooping  flight 
and  because  it  clears  the  garden  of  insects  and 
worms.  One  day  a  conversation  like  this  took 
place  between  my  grandfather  and  myself,  my 
grandfather  being  at  that  time  a  man  of  about 
sixty-five  years  of  age : 

"Grandfather.  ',L.,  how  would  you  like  to 
measure  the  height  of  a  martin  pole  without  get 
ting  within  twenty -five  feet  of  it? 

"L.  Pooh!     It  can't  be  done. 

" Grandfather.  Yes,  I  think  you  could  do  it  if 
you  are  willing  to  take  a  little  pains. 

"L.  Do  you  really   think  I   could   do   it? 

"Grandfather.  Yes,  I  think  you  can  if  you  are 
willing  to  take  the  pains  that  surveyors  take 
when  they  build  a  railroad. 

"L.  Do  they  have  to  measure  things  without 
going  near  them? 

"Grandfather.  Yes,  they  have  to  measure 
the  height  of  precipices,  sometimes  of  moun 
tains. 

"L.  (His  curiosity  now  somewhat  excited). 
How  do  they  do  that? 

"Grandfather.  By  what  is  called  triangulation 
355 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

and  by  using  some  interesting  tables  of  figures 
called  logarithms. 

"To  make  a  long  story  short,  I  was  enticed  by 
this  method  into  studying  the  very  simple  ele 
ments  of  surveying,  and  I  did  measure  the  height 
of  a  martin  pole  and  used  a  logarithm  table  in 
the  process.  Instead  of  being  a  dry-as-dust 
study  which  I  rebelled  against,  it  was  trans 
formed  into  a  game  which  I  really  enjoyed. 
In  the  same  way  my  elemental  French  and  ele 
mental  Latin  were  applied  to  the  objects  and 
the  life  round  about  us.  My  grandfather  was, 
I  think,  one  of  the  pioneers  in  this  country  in 
the  application  of  this  principle  of  interesting 
the  child  in  its  studies. 

"  Quarrels  and  controversies  between  the 
grandchildren  or  the  village  children  who 
came  to  Fewacres  to  play  were  settled  by  the 
application  of  this  principle.  A  court  would  be 
organized,  one  of  the  quarrellers  would  be  the 
plaintiff,  the  other  the  defendant.  Witnesses 
would  be  summoned;  a  small  jury  would  be 
empanelled  and  my  grandfather  would  be 
the  judge.  If  the  defendant  was  found  guilty 
he  usually  was  punished  by  a  fine  of  some  kind, 
perhaps  suggested  by  the  judge,  but  generally 
determined  by  the  jury.  If  it  was  a  quarrel 
over  a  swing,  for  example,  and  the  defendant 
was  found  guilty  he  might  be  sentenced  not 

356 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

to  use  the  swing  for  an  hour  or  for  a  day,  as 
the  case  might  be,  and  the  police  who  were  duly 
appointed  among  the  children  were  expected  to 
see  that  the  sentence  was  carried  out.  The  result 
was  that  Fewacres  was  not  only  the  favour 
ite  resort  of  the  grandchildren,  but  the  favourite 
resort  of  many  of  the  village  children,  who,  I 
am  sure,  like  myself,  had  impressed  upon  their 
minds,  although  wholly  subconsciously,  some  of 
the  elemental  principles  of  science  and  govern 
ment  that  were  very  useful  to  them  in  after 
life." 

Another  grandchild  has  told  me  that  a  bank 
was  organized  with  a  president,  a  board  of 
directors,  a  cashier,  and  a  teller,  in  which 
ivory  counters  served  as  coin.  Bank  bills  were 
issued,  promissory  notes  were  discounted,  and 
all  the  ordinary  operations  of  banking  were  car 
ried  on  in  what  was  at  once  a  game  and  a  study. 
My  father  used  a  very  simple  method  to  teach 
the  children  the  difference  between  labour  and 
commodities,  a  difference  which  even  to  this 
day  some  larger  employers  of  labour  appear 
not  to  comprehend.  "Grandfather,"  says  my 
informant,  "would  send  two  of  us  into  the  vil 
lage  to  make  a  purchase  for  him.  Sometimes 
he  would  tell  us  that  if  we  would  get  the  needed 
article  he  would  purchase  it  from  us,  in  which 
case,  we  sold  it  to  him  at  a  small  profit,  but  if 

357 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

we  could  not  get  the  article  at  the  stores,  we  got 
nothing  for  our  errand.  Sometimes  he  would 
employ  us  to  do  the  errand  and  then  we  were 
paid  whether  we  succeeded  or  failed." 

My  father  accumulated  few  books  and  nothing 
that  could  be  called  a  library,  but  his  method 
of  using  books  was  of  a  great  service  to  his  neigh 
bours.  There  is  an  excellent  village  library  in 
Farmington  and  its  catalogue  shows  large  and 
constant  contributions  from  Fewacres,  which  in 
clude  many  of  which  my  father  was  the  author. 
He  also  sent  periodically  to  this  library  the 
weekly  papers  and  monthly  magazines  after  their 
immediate  use  by  the  Fewacres'  household.  He 
took  no  active  part  in  church  affairs,  and  I  do 
not  think  ever  attended  the  monthly  meeting 
for  the  transaction  of  church  business.  But  he 
habitually  attended  the  church  service  on  Sunday 
mornings,  where  his  presence  was  an  inspiration 
to  the  preacher.  His  pastor,  the  Reverend 
George  N.  Harden,  subsequently  a  professor  in 
Colorado  College,  in  a  manuscript  account  of  his 
recollections  of  my  father,  says,  "Before  me,  at 
this  moment,  lies  a  note  from  his  hand,  in  which, 
with  a  modest  apology,  he  refers  to  the  sermon 
of  the  previous  day  as  likely  to  call  forth  various 
opinions  and  states  that  he  wishes  to  state  his 
own  decided  approbation."  In  such  simple  and 
characteristic  ways  as  this,  he  showed  himself 

358 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

to  be  an  appreciative  rather  than  a  critical 
hearer. 

He  did  not  take  any  active  part  in  village  poli 
tics  and  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  any  other  active 
part  than  that  of  a  voter  in  the  politics  of 
either  the  state  or  the  nation.  But  his  view  of 
what  was  due  to  the  Government  under  which 
he  lived  is  indicated  by  an  incident  which  Mr. 
Harden  relates:  "Mr.  Abbott's  sterling  integrity 
as  a  citizen  was  illustrated  when  having  changed 
his  legal  residence  from  New  York  to  Farming- 
ton  he  stated  the  amount  of  his  taxable  property. 
The  astonished  assessor  exclaimed,  'Why,  Mr. 
Abbott,  if  you  are  assessed  on  this  entire  sum 
you  will  pay  a  larger  tax  than  any  man  in  Far- 
mington,  you  will  pay  more  than  your  share.' 
Mr.  Abbott  quietly  replied,  'I  know  but  one 
way  of  stating  the  amount  of  my  taxable  prop 
erty  and  that  is  to  state  it  just  as  it  is." 

Thus  my  father  spent  his  last  years  peacefully 
and  quietly  in  his  old  home,  honoured  by  his 
fellow-citizens,  adored  by  the  children.  He 
died  in  1879  in  the  seventy-sixth  year  of  his 
age.  His  youngest  son  and  I  were  with  him 
at  the  time  of  his  death.  My  brother,  who  was 
stronger  than  I,  lifted  my  father  up  during  a 
paroxysm  of  pain  and  then  laid  him  down  again 
upon  the  pillow,  saying  to  him,  "Are  you  more 
comfortable  now,  Father?"  and  received  the 

359 


SILHOUETTES  OF  MY  CONTEMPORARIES 

whispered  answer,  "Too  comfortable.  I  hoped 
that  I  was  going,"  These  were,  I  think,  his 
last  words. 

In  his  preface  to  the  Franconia  Stories  my 
father  states  the  principle  by  which  he  has  been 
guided  in  all  his  story-writing  for  children: 
"The  development  of  the  moral  sentiments  in 
the  human  heart,  in  early  life — and  everything, 
in  fact,  which  relates  to  the  formation  of  charac 
ter — is  determined  in  a  far  greater  degree  by 
sympathy,  and  by  the  influence  of  example, 
than  by  formal  precepts  and  didactic  instruc 
tion."  .  .  .  "It  is  in  accordance  with  this 
philosophy  that  these  stories,  though  written 
mainly  with  a  view  to  their  moral  influence  on  the 
hearts  and  dispositions  of  the  readers,  contain 
very  little  formal  exhortation  and  instruction." 

Therefore,  in  his  stories  for  children,  my 
father's  religious  teaching  was  implied,  rather 
than  directly  expressed;  but  it  was  not  less  effec 
tive  for  that  reason.  To  his  Christian  faith  he 
has  given  expression  in  the  Young  Christian 
Series,  though  even  in  those  volumes  it  is  ex 
pressed,  never  in  the  abstract  terms  of  scholastic 
theology,  but  in  dramatic  forms  and  by  sim 
ple  illustrations  taken  from  our  common  life. 
Faith  in  a  Heavenly  Father  as  a  friend  and 
companion  made  known  to  us  by  the  human 

360 


JACOB  ABBOTT 

life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  a  supreme  desire 
to  know  his  will,  deserve  his  confidence,  and 
cooperate  with  him  in  his  work,  were  the  secrets 
of  my  father's  religious  experience,  the  founda 
tion  of  his  theological  philosophy,  and  the  in 
spiration  of  his  life-long  industry.  This  simple 
creed  I  have  inherited  from  him.  It  has  been 
the  substance  and  the  inspiration  of  my  teach 
ing  for  over  three  quarters  of  a  century,  and  for 
it  I  am  indebted  to  lessons  received  and  spirit 
imbibed  from  the  author  of  the  Rollo  Books,rthe 
Franconia  Stories,  and  the  Young  Christian 
Series. 

THE  END 


361 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

RENEWED  BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO  IMMEDIATE 
RECALL 


LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 

Book  Slip-50m-8,'66(G5530s4)458 


N2  469758 

E663 
Abbott,  L.  A3 

Silhouettes  of  my 
contemporaries . 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


